8 GuENON ON Milch Cows. 



ducers of middling quality; the third, the bad re-producers. I mean by- 

 bad, those in which fails the ability for the transmission of the lactiferous 

 qualities. As one sees, the characteristic signs with the males, as with 

 the females, have a significant value of the highest importance. With the 

 bull, they portray the re-productive qualities, and with the cows the lac- 

 tiferous qualities. The observers who will apply my system of one kind, 

 as rigorously for the males as for the females, will observe in the passage 

 of one order to the other, the same scale of proportion that this estab- 

 lished in the classification of the cows. Although the classification bears 

 more on the lactiferous or re-productive properties than on the others, it 

 is important to take in consideration all the other qualities that the indi- 

 viduals can and ought to possess to be of an irreproachable organization. 



The cows of the first and second order of each class, in all the races, 

 will always give in the same country, a greater abundance of milk than 

 those of inferior orders. To recognize the lactiferous produce of cows, 

 whatever may be their class or the locality that they inhabit, it suffices 

 simply to know the quality of the food which makes the habitual nourish- 

 ment of the cows in the place where they are kept. 



In following in his appreciation, the degree of superiority or of inferi- 

 ority of the escutcheon, one will judge close upon the daily quantity of 

 milk that all the cows of the same country are apt to give, for one will 

 know then in what proportion all the figures of the classification should 

 be modified. A milk cow ought to be neither too fat nor too lean, to give 

 her maximum of milk. All confinements in a period of thinness is prejudi- 

 cial to the habitual produce. Even when the animal would have recovered 

 her strength, she will not recuperate so as to restore the quantity of her 

 milk ; that can take place only after a year, and by means of a new calf. 

 A great milk cow, whatever may be her aptness for fattening, and her con- 

 dition of fat at the time of calving, becomes thin about fifteen or twenty 

 days after calving ; the time of her rut is therefore less near than that of 

 a poor milk cow, because her vital forces are weaker. Witness the quan- 

 tity of her yield, which is only that of a cow of medium product. 



One can compare a milch cow to a fruit tree, which gives more fruit this 

 year than the next. When the sap of the tree carries vigor to the develop- 

 ment of the fruit, the growth of the wood remains nearly stationary. When, 

 on the contrary, the tree gives but little fruit, the sap turns to the profit 

 of the wood, to give, after a repose of several years, a greater quantity of 

 fruit, and to continue thus by alternative successions. 



It is the same with the cow, for it is seldom that her produce keeps the 

 same during three consecutive years, for the reason that, when the nourish- 

 ment absorbed by her turns to the profit of the milk, the milk is more 

 abundant ; when, on the contrary, the nourishment goes to fat, the milk 

 diminishes. 



The variations in the milk quantity should be justly attributed to the 

 influence of atmospheric circumstances of the seasons, which react on the 



