SELECTION OF MILK COWS. 397 



"Such is the truth, as to the perfect nicety, claimed for the 

 scutcheon system. This system cannot do more than furnish an 

 approximate estimate of the quantity of milk, and that in regard 

 not to all v but only to the majority of cows. 



" What, then, has led so many persons to put confidence in 

 M. Guenon's discovery? The great talents and knowledge of 

 the author. The system has obtained the credit of results due 

 to the experience of him who applied it. 



"If, instead of employing M. Guenon personally, to give judg- 

 ment on cows, he had been employed to train pupils, and teach 

 his system as Daguerre has taught how to take likenesses, his 

 discovery would long ago have been estimated at its true worth. 

 And the services rendered by it would not have been less great. 

 For although the mark furnished by the scutcheons, is far from 

 having the perfect certainty which some persons, unacquainted 

 with physiological science, have wished to ascribe to it, it must 

 not be thought that the mark is of no use. 



"By his discovery, M. Guenon has rendered great service to 

 agriculture; the scutcheon has the advantage of furnishing a 

 mark which can be easily discerned, and estimated even by per- 

 sons of no great experience in the selection of cows a mark 

 perceptible on very young animals, and on lulls as well as 

 heifers a mark, in fine, which, when disencumbered of the com- 

 plicated system in which it has been wrapped up, will, ere long, 

 be in common use, and facilitate the increase of good cows, by 

 not allowing any but those of good promise to be reared. 



"It has been proposed, as a means of ascertaining the quali- 

 ties of the milk, to have regard to the fineness of the hair which 

 forms the scutcheons, the color of the skin, and the dust which 

 falls from them when they are rubbed; but experience has not 

 yet demonstrated that these marks have the value which hao 

 been ascribed to them. M. Guenon, in deciding on the qualities 

 of the milk of three hundred and eleven cows, was wrong one 

 hundred and nineteen times." 



