82 JUDGING CATTLE 



greatest vitality and all the organs the greatest productive 

 powers. 



To sum up, if we consider a cow simply as a machine for 

 making milk, we find that the food is manufactured into 

 blood by the stomach and its accessories and the blood in a 

 general sense is made into milk by the udder so that the two 

 main manufacturing centers of the dairy cow are the stomach 

 and the udder, and it is around these that what is known as 

 the dairy type has evolved its peculiarities. But as the 

 dairy cow is more than a machine, as she has vitality and 

 recuperative power, we find that the nervous system as 

 expressed in the nervous temperament is what enables her 

 to maintain her enormous productive powers in these 

 centers 



133. The Dairy Form. It will be understood from the 

 previous discussion of the function of the dairy cow that 

 there are four main centers of activity when she is perform- 

 ing her function ; the digestive system, the milk secreting 

 system, the circulatory system and the nervous system. 

 And it is because of extreme activity in these centers that 

 the dairy cow inclines towards a given type. She tends to 

 become wedge shaped and lean because of the unusual 

 activity in the regions mentioned. Certain portions of her 

 organization have an undue amount of work which tends to 

 their development in an extreme degree, while the other 

 portions because of their activity and lack of nourishment 

 do not develop to the fullest degree ; this results in the 

 instance of unusual performers in a type that is inclined to 

 be narrow in front and wide and deep behind. While it 

 does not necessarily follow that a cow, to be a good dairy 

 animal, must be of this type yet because of the work she 

 does, most of them tend towards it. The relation of type 

 to performance has been the subject of experiments by 

 Professor Haecker, reported in Bulletin 67 of the Minne- 

 sota Experiment Station. When a cow is milking freely 



