98 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



herbage which are inadequate profitably to sustain the fat-secreting 

 breeds. Grass-land on the clay soils on the sides of the uplands, and 

 even on the poorer sands, is quite adequate to supply the means of 

 making butter or cheese; but it will very ill repay the person who at- 

 tempts to feed cattle on herbage so inferior; while the rich alluvial 

 feeding pastures which generally skirt the rivers, are far more profitably 

 employed in raising summer beef than in the production of milk, of 

 cheese, or of butter. Some races of long-horns, of short-horns, or of 

 middle horns, or even of polled animals, are to be placed amongst the 

 one class we have alluded to, and some amongst the other, and we pre- 

 fer arranging the breeds most celebrated for the quantity or quality of 

 tl>eir milk under the first head, and reserve the second to the races with 

 special aptitude for fattening. 



The question arises very naturally how far it is possible, by external 

 conformations of the individual animal, to detect its capabilities for the 

 secretion of milk. There are instances in every breed where it is evi- 

 dent nature has been more bountiful, or more nigo-ardly, in bestowing 

 the qualities calculated to produce the secretion for which the race may 

 be celebrated ; and there are, doubtless, marks, well known to the dairy- 

 man, Avhich seldom fail to indicate the power of the animal in the range 

 of qualities peculiar to his race. On the continent of Europe this has 

 been professed to be carried to a very minute extent. Francois Guenon, 

 a Frenchman, professed to have found, by close observation, a mode of 

 deciding authoritatively, not only the quantity and quality of milk 

 which would be given by any particular cow, but also the period for 

 which she would retain her milk after calving, and tliis he proposed 

 to do by external appearances alone, and these of a somewhat arbitrary 

 kind. 



It is not within the compass of this work to 

 uive any thing like a description of the mode 

 lie adopted, now made public,* but the foun- 

 dation of it is, his classification of all kinds of 

 cnttle into eight classes, or families; each fam- 

 ily is divided into three sections, according to 

 size only, and each section is again subdivided 

 into eight orders. 



The distinguishing marks by which he di- 

 vides these are: 1. The Gravure, commencing 

 at the udder, and extending to the bearing; 

 cLAesi.FLANDRiNEsoFGUENON's^. Thc Epis, a soft brush of hair upon the 

 bvsTF.M animal ; and 3, Contrepoil, or hair growing 



the contrary way. The peculiarities of these marks constitute the dis- 

 tinction between the families and orders. Thus, if the gravure be large, 

 the reservoir of milk will be large, and the product abundant; if it be 

 formed of fine hair, if the skin be yellowish, and if a kind of bran powder 

 which comes off the skin be of that color, they are all signs of a good 



* Tliis work, with the original figures and a full elucidation of the system, can be 

 procured of C. M. Saxton, 25 Park Row, New York. It is an ingenious and plausi- 

 ble system, and well worthy the attention of dairymen. — Ed. 



