t 583 ] 



and less subject to diseases than cross-bred animals. As 

 cows are carefully housed and treated, a certain amount of 

 delicacy of constitution may not do much harm, but for 

 draught animals, which must necessarily get rough treatment, 

 delicacy of constitution is most undesirable. Draught animals 

 should not be crossed with European cattle for another reason : 

 the hump of the bullock is of great service in ploughing 

 and in carting, and as European cattle are without humps the 

 cross-bred animals are either with or without humps, or with 

 ill-developed humps. We can leave beef-producing out of 

 consideration altogether in a book on Indian Agriculture. 



978. Points. Of all pure-bred Indian cattle of Northern 

 India which are easily available for breeding purposes for the 

 other two types of animals, the Kosi is the best to select 

 for Bengal. It is a native of Mathura in the N.-W. P. A 

 good Kosi cow should be characterised by the following 

 marks, which should characterize more or less all milch cows : 

 It should have a heavy dew-lap ; a prominent forehead ; 

 bad-ami (almond-shaped) eye; fine, glossy and polished hair; 

 the hairy part of the tail should be bushy and tapery ; the 

 belly, large but well-proportioned to the size of the animal ; 

 the horns, elegant and well-proportioned ; the udder, large, and 

 front teats larger than the hind ones and all four well apart 

 from one another. The milk-veins should be well developed 

 and tortuous. The temper of a cow should be docile and the 

 animal should be slow and Ia.i,y rather than sprightly. A bad 

 tempered cow should be assumed to be a poor milker. Though 

 a good milker is usually a good tempered animal, it should 

 be also borne in mind that the better the cow the more likely 

 she is to be of a nervous temperament and the more she is 

 apt to be affected by a change in handling, milking or 

 surroundings. If the new milker lacks experience, the result 

 usually is a permanent shrinkage of the milk yield and early 

 drying off of the cow. Heifers with their first calf should 

 be milked for 10 or n monthsjn the year, that the habit of 



