Oua Mode of Judging Stock. 27 



milking up to calving. Generally the best milkers milk the longest. Hence 

 it follows, that a good escutcheon usually indicates continued flow as well 

 as large quantity. Those escutcheons that are not large at the base, but 

 that run up to the vulva symmetrical all the way, and pretty wide, indicate 

 a yield of milk up to the time of calving." 



Our Mode of Judging- Stock. 



The beauty of the Guenon system is, that it is an aid to all other modes 

 of selecting stock, and therefore, it gives a decided advantage to the per- 

 son who understands it over the one who does not. For instance, let two 

 buyers go into a herd, and let them be equal judges of stock, one of them 

 will be very apt to buy a bastard, while the other one would very positively 

 leave her alone, simply because the latter has a knowledge of the best and 

 surest mode of all modes of judging stock. And this knowledge does not 

 prevent him from using his half a dozen other modes of deciding its merits, 

 but aids them. So, too, in selecting a bull for a propagator, the believer 

 in Guenon will select one with a good escutcheon and a fine skin, while the 

 other will decide almost entirely by the form. And so with calves, the 

 one who selects calves by the Guenon marks will be pretty sure to have a 

 dairy of productive cows, while the other will have to dispose of some 

 unprofitable ones. The one makes monej-, because he is working intelli- 

 gently with every light of science, while the other is only guessing pretty 

 well. 



We first look at a cow from the front, and see that she widens as she 

 gets back to her hips, or is wedge-shai)ed. Xext we look at her side, and 

 we again see that she rises on her back and descends on the belly as she 

 goes back to the tail, or in other words she is wedge-shaped, too, from 

 this point of view. These two looks at her have enabled us to see that she 

 has a feminine appearance ; that her head is small and neat in proportion 

 to her body, with a waxy small horn, a mild but large eye, a broad muzzle, 

 and that it is well set on her neck ; that she has a good chest, and large 

 deep paunch, with large full ribs, fuller below and joined to a rather high 

 back bone ; that is to say she has not the breadth of back we look for in a 

 beef animal. If the chine is double, it indicates a cow above the average ; if 

 the chine is single, sometimes we can lay our three fingers in three depres- 

 sions in it at about the middle of it, showing that she is a loose rangy cow, 

 and fitted for her work. Now we will look at her udder and see that it 

 runs forward as level as possible to the belly, and that it is large, with 

 four good-sized, well-shaped teats slightly strutting from each quarter. 

 Now we gently approach her, and pat her to gain her confidence, and get 

 a chance to feel her hide, her milk veins, and examine her escutcheon. If 

 we find her skin is thin, soft, and greasy, with short fine hair, with rather 

 a furry nature, and showing the skin yellow under it ; that her udder and her 

 perineum have soft thin skin, with very short furry hair ; that her milk veins 

 are large, zig-zag, and knotty, entering the body with good-sized holes, 



