66 



with small horns and all famous not only for the abundance of their milk, but 

 for the quantity and quality of the cream. 



If I refer finally to the Polled or Muley breeds it is only to substantiate my 

 position that the horns have no important influence in connection with the milk 

 and butter yield. The Polled-Angus is to-day a poor milker, but it is so for the 

 same reason that the Shorthorn is so. It has been selected and fed so persist- 

 ently for early maturity and rapid fattening that the disposition to yield milk 

 lias been superseded, and it is to-day an exclusively beef breed. But it was not 

 always so, and in the early part of this century the Polled-Angus was quoted as 

 Iding from fifteen to twenty quarts of milk daily, and remarkably rich in 

 m. The Galloway is quoted as yielding six to fifteen quarts daily, which 

 produced from three-fourth pounds to one and one-half pounds butter. The 

 polled Norfolk and Suffolk on the richer pastures of England yield as high as 

 thirty quarts of milk a day and this is unusually rich in butter. 



While therefore the polled cattle can not be claimed as the heaviest milking 

 breed.-, the\ have proved themselves excellent milkers, when selected and fed to 

 develop this quality, and in place of the lack of horns determining a watery milk 

 deficient in cream, they have always been remarkable for the relative abundance 

 and richness of the cream. I am not advocating the {tolled cattle as dairy stock. 

 Some horned breeds, like the Channel Island cattle, are far in advance of them, 

 alike in the yield of milk, in relation to the size of the animal and in the relative 

 amount and richness of the butter. But they are not doomed as dairy breeds 

 because of the absence of horns, as the past record of the Angus and Gallo- 

 way, and the present record of the Suffolk sufficiently testify. 



We have seen, moreover, that the longhorned races of cattle are pre-emi- 

 nently the poor milkers, while the palm for abundance and richness of milk rests 

 with the breeds with small and short horns. But neither long or short horned, 

 nor polled heads are any guarantee of the milking characteristics of a breed nor 

 of an animal. The horns are absolutely unimportant in this connection and the 

 conditions which influence the milk and butter yield must be looked for else- 

 where. 



System and habits affected by removing the horns. — While we have seen 

 that the size of horns or their entire absence has no necessary effect on the milk 

 secretion, it can not be allowed that the removal of the horns has no effect on 

 the animal or its secretions. The results may be divided into immediate and 

 remote. The immediate results are first the shock occasioned by the removal of 

 the horns from an adult animal, and the inflammation that ensues on the seat of 

 the operation. Now these acting on a cow in the full flow of milk will necess- 

 arily produce an immediate diminution in the flow of milk. How considerable 

 and how prolonged such decrease of flow will prove, will usually be determined 

 by the special nervousness and irritability of the animal and by the existing 

 state of health and purity or impurity of the surrounding air. In a very suscep- 

 tible animal the effect of the shock may be greatly prolonged. In an irritable 

 subject the wounds may heal badly, and the same may result from its exposure 

 to extreme cold or to poisonous material in the air or elsewhere. The effect of 

 such unhealthy inflammation in the wound may be to a certain extent perma- 

 nent, as the ill health brought about in this way may permanently impair the 

 action of the udder. 



The other remote effects are mainly connected with the new habits acquired 

 by the animal. 



First. A dehorned cow left in a herd, any of which retain their horns, is 

 ahused and driven about at the will of the latter. The exclusion from desirable 

 food and the constant apprehension and excitement in which a dehorned nervous 



