Objections to Ripori op Commissioners. 37 



itflexible. We prefer to follow the skill of Guenon and not the ignorance 

 of Reeder, as it was Guenon we were appointed to test. 



Finally, he objects to the terras employed to denote the significance of 

 the escutcheon. The great difl3culty of the commission was to find herds 

 of which an accurate test of each animal had been made and kept. We 

 believe not one farmer in one hundred thousand has such a record. Yet 

 the commission are expected by such "infallible" advocates as Mr. R. to 

 tell the exact character of each cow, and that record is to be set down 

 alongside of the inaccurate record of the owner ; and if they vary at all, 

 the commission are the ones at fault. The very terms Mr. R. objects to 

 were employed by us by special agreement with the owners, because they 

 hesitated to say how many quarts or pounds each of their cows gave. But 

 tvhere there were such careful farmers as W. M. Large, M, Eastburn, J. 

 Pyle, and M. Conard, who gave quarts, and the commission gave quarts, 

 we would invite attention to the comparative reports as the best answer. 

 And even in Mr. R.'s own case we ask comparison, for the reason why the 

 commission are on most of his cows one or two quarts higher is easily ac- 

 counted for, because we did not learn until after the examination that he 

 was generally ranked by his neighbors a poor feeder, which would cer- 

 tainly make the difference. In the cases of such fine herds as those of S. 

 J. Sharpless, Thomas M. Harvey, Thomas Gawthrop, and H. Preston, &c., 

 the accounts were highly satisfactory to their owners and confirmed them 

 in the merits of the s^'stem. For the same reasons we object to his test 

 of "the system in other herds " as any proof of the merits of Guenon, foi 

 it was his interpretation of the escutcheons that is given, and it would be 

 very unfair to judge Guenon as interpreted by one who is not an expert. 



Mr. Hardin has written much against the system, but containing very 

 little argument, and no valid objection. We will endeavor to sift out of 

 the mass, any points made : 



He thought there should be one " non-believer " on the commission, so 

 as to " make a fair and disinterested report." What possible use he may 

 have been is a mystery, except to cavil at what perhaps he did not under- 

 stand. The commission simply put down what they interpreted the escutch- 

 eons to indicate, and the owner stated what he knew of his stock. The 

 two accounts were brought together and compared. What more a non- 

 believer could have done, we are at a loss to conceive. 



His process of examination was laid down thus : " To take down in 

 writing before you see the cows, the owners' and milkers' opinions of all 

 the cows to be tested." " Make the owners and milkers, out of hearing of 

 each other, tell you the name of the cow, her age, how much milk she gives 

 when fresh, how much milk she gives a year, is her milk rich or poor ; have 

 you ever tested the milk by measure, or otherwise to determine the amount 

 or its richness ; what breed is she ?" " Get a non-believer to make pencil 

 sketches of each escutcheon." " The Governor to appoint two more on the 

 committee who are not believers." 



