REMARKABLE DISCOVERY. 251 



REMARKABLE DISCOVERY. 



MODE OF KXOVVING THE QUALITIES OF MILCH COWS, BY EXTERNAL SIGNS. 



If there was any one thing which, more than any other, we determined from 

 the commencement to avoid, in the management of this journal, it was that of 

 flying kites for the amusement of our readers — exciting false hopes by proclaim- 

 ing wonderful discoveries, and panaceas for agricultural complaints, contrary to 

 the laws of reason and Nature. Such tricks sometimes serve for a while to keep 

 up a factitious excitement, until, vanishing into " thin air," one after another, 

 their aggregate nothingness at last strikes the public mind, dissipates all con- 

 fidence, and leaves for the wonder-workers, inventors of crude machines, and 

 compounders of nostrums, little else but ridicule or contempt. 



It was in this cautious spirit that we announced the extraordinary discovery 

 of M. GuENoN, the son of a French gardener, by which he undertook, after more 

 than twenty years of close observation and study, by examination of visible exter- 

 nal marks, to pronounce with certainty on the rnilking qualities of cows. 



Although we had unbounded confidence in the fidelity of the learned translator 

 of the work, (Mr. Trist,) and the highest respect for his judgment, so far as that 

 was staked or made up on his own observation, in favor of the truth of M. Gue- 

 non's system, still we ventured only to say that it " was maintained " that, by 

 the signs laid down, " one may without fail discover, even in a calf a few months 

 old, whether it will make a good milker ;" adding, " strange as may appear such 

 a discovery, it yet seerns to have been subjected, in many cases, to the severest 

 test." And then we proceeded to give the proofs. These consisted mainly in 

 very explicit statements and certificates by Committees of various Agricultural 

 Societies in France, from which the following are extracts. 



The Asricultural Society of Toulouse report: 



" We conducted M. Gueuon into seven cow-stables, with which he was entirely unac- 

 quainted. Here forty-six cows were submitted to his inspection. In twenty-two instances 

 he named tlie exact niunber of pints given by each cow ; in fourteen he came within a pint, 

 and in ten witliin two or three pints. But the main fact of the discovery we consider as es- 

 tablished, as Monsieur Guenon invariably distinguislies the good from the bad milkers. — 

 From this fact, with which the Committee was much struck, there residts the consequence 

 that there is really an ejcistin'^ relation between the milking properties and the visible ex- 

 ternal siirns or escutcheons mdicated. The Committee consider <is a \ast sen-ice rendered 

 to Agriculture, a discovery which l);is taught us to distinguisli good from bad milkers ; and 

 it is the greater ;is the system applies to calves, ;uid thus enables us to discard, by handing 

 over to the butcher, worthless heifers tJiat we would otherwise be at the expense of rear- 

 ing-" 



Again : The Agricultural Society of Bordeaux appointed a Committee, of 

 whom the Veterinary Professor of the Department was one, and in a very special 

 and particular report, after putting the author and his system through the closest 

 possible examination, (as may he seen at large in Vol. I. of this Journal,) they 

 say, in so many words, to the Society : " This system, gentlemen, we do not fear 

 to say is infallible.^'' 



Again : A Committee was appointed by the Agricultu7-al Society of Aurillac, 



their report will be found as follows : 



(539) 



