THE COSMOPOLITAN COW. 129 



me that a four-year-old steer often dressed for Christmas beef 

 fourteen hundred pounds. He said they were bred solely for 

 beef purposes. Yet the Devon, in certain parts of Connect- 

 icut (just as the Shorthorn and Durham in Worcester County 

 and the Ayrshire in Essex County) intermingled with dairy 

 breeds, has produced almost as good a dairy cow as we have 

 in New England. That somewhat broad-horned, well-shaped 

 red cow, with a white end to her tail, — everybody knows her, 

 — is about as good a cow as you can find. And what is quite 

 remarkable, she resembles, in color, shape, and size, the best 

 imported Ayrshire bull ever brought into New England. 

 That shows you, does it not, the correctness of that statement 

 of mine, that you can generally wind up the description of a 

 good cow, of any grade, by saying, "She is a good cow, for 

 she looks like the Ayrshire " ? 



It is exactly so with the Jerseys. You get a pure-bred 

 Jersey, and she is as delicate as a child, almost; but you 

 can put that strain of blood into other breeds, to such advan- 

 tage that I have seen many and many a grade Jersey cow, 

 which, in general conformation and condition, was so analo- 

 gous to an Ayrshire that you would say, "Why, upon my 

 word, those Ayrshires must have some Jersey blood in them, 

 after all." You know, sir, that we can make Americans out 

 of any nationality in the world, if you will only give it time 

 enough to get a foothold on this continent. I have always 

 said that the American blood was the most cosmopolitan and 

 all-absorbing blood known. So I say that the Ayrshire cow, 

 as a dairy cow, is the most cosmopolitan and all-absorbing 

 cow on earth. 



Now, a word in regard to the feed of these animals. I 

 have so often stated the law in regard to the feeding of dairy 

 animals that it seems hardly necessary to repeat it again. 

 I think that law is, so to keep your animal that is to be 

 engaged in the business of making milk, as not to rouse to 

 undue action the fat-producing functions at any period of life. 

 For instance, take a yearling heifer that has been kept in full- 

 beef condition up to a year old, and her life has been so 

 devoted to the business of making fat that it seems as if the 

 fat-producing functions had overrun the milk-producing func- 

 tions, and the chances are that she will not be worth a dollar 

 17 



