TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 151 



The disposition varies greatly in different individuals. 

 An irritable, kicking, fence- jumping cow is not expected to* 

 make much of a record as a milk and butter-fat producer. She 

 uses too much of her energy in performance that has no market 

 value; the making of milk is a secondary matter with her. Such 

 cows consume little feed and exhibit a fastidious appetite; in 

 short, they are not useful cattle, there being too much waste 

 of energy in nervousness and bad temper. In contrast to such 

 cows is the cow that never moves faster than a walk and is gentle 

 and pleasant to handle. She is a good feeder and is easily 

 suited with her feed. She spends lots of time chewing her cud 

 and is always busy making milk. She is a useful, profitable 

 cow, provided she has the conformation which enables her to 

 work successfully. The irritable cow has an uneasy and wild 

 expression of the eye, and carries her head high. She is usually 

 switching her tail whether it is fly-time or not. Proper dispo- 

 sition is indicated by a calm eye, and by a carriage of the poll 

 of the head no higher or lower than the withers. If the head 

 is carried high it indicates nervousness, while a head carried low 

 indicates quietness carried to the extreme of sluggishness. 



The size of dairy cows varies between wide limits. The 

 holders of the world's records in milk and butter-fat production 

 are large cows, which is a condition naturally to be expected, 

 but does not signify that small cows are necessarily less profit- 

 able. The beef producer must keep up a certain degree of size 

 in his cattle in order that the cuts of beef will have the size and 

 weight desired, but with dairy cattle it is different. The dairy- 

 man cares not so much that his cows are large and hence large 

 yielders, as that the yield be made economically; he studies the 

 production in relation to the feed consumed. Small cows not 

 only yield less, but eat less, and may be as profitable as large 

 cows. The latter have an advantage in that they can profitably 

 consume proportionately more roughage, and fewer of them 

 need be kept to produce a given quantity of milk, requiring 

 fewer stalls and slightly less labor. On the other hand, if the 

 calves can be sold at a profit, as would be true of a purebred 

 herd, the smaller cows will realize more profit from this source. 

 The question of size is of minor importance and may be almost 

 ignored so far as the production of market milk is concerned. 



The Dairy Bull. 



The features of dairy type as they apply to the dairy cow 

 having been fully discussed, and the fundamental points of 



