MONTHLY 



JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



VOL. I. 



FEBRUARY, 1846. 



NO. 8. 



TREATISE ON MILCH COWS. 



TREATISE ON MILCH COWS : Whereby the Quality and Quantity of Milk which any Cow- 

 will Give may be Accurately Determined, by Observing Natur.*l Marks, or External Indi- 

 cations alone ; THE Length of Time she will Continue to Give Milk, &c. &c. By M. FBA^f- 

 CI3 Guenon, France. Translated from tlio French of the Author, for the Farmers' Library, by N. P. 

 U'rist, late U. S. Consul at Havana. With Practical Obseri'ations and Remarks on Cattle, by John S. 

 Skinner. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846. by Greeley &. McElbath, in the Clerk's Office of 

 the District Coun for the t-outhem District of New- York. 



CHAPTER L 



ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY. 



To give the history of my discovery, I must speak of myself. My narrative 

 shall be succinct and short, although my labors have been protracted. But this 

 is a condition attached to discoveries generally ; we must meditate long upou 

 what an instant has sufficed to reveal or suggest to us. It Avill be seen that, in 

 my case, difficulties were always renewing. 



I am the son of a gardener, and I followed for a long time this trade of my 

 forefathers. Nature had given me an observhig turn of mind ; I was fond of 

 bringing things together — of instituting comparisons between them — of deducing 

 consequences. At an early period I became possessed by the idea that I was 

 destined to make some important discovery in the branch of industry which I fol- 

 lowed. Was this the suggestion of mere vanity ? Be it as it may, the thought 

 took root in my mind, and became for me a fixed idea. With a view to arriving 

 at this wished-for discovery, I studied the works of the best writers on Botany 

 and Agriculture ; I learned Geometry and the art of Drawing, so far as it seemed 

 necessary to me. I followed up all the ramifications of the vegetable kingdom, 

 and applied myself to the study of the external signs by which plants and vege- 

 tables of different sorts might be distinguished, and their qualities and product- 

 iveness might be known beforehand. 



To do this was to accomplish a good deal, no doubt ; but my mind, still pos- 

 sessed by the idea of the great future discovery, was never at rest. I was, like 

 Ahasuerus, under the hand of the angel ; a voice within was constantly crying 

 out, " Go on ! " and I felt myself impelled forward ; but I had no glimpse of the 

 goal to which I was tending. 



Chance led to the discovery of the famous Tyrian purple ; to chance also is 

 due an observation which was the germ of my discovery, and constitutes the ba- 

 sis of mv method. When fourteen years of asre, I used, according to country cus- 



(785) 



