12 



This as it now exists has loeen made by art, and as it can be 

 maintained only by art, every dairyman should understand the process 

 and the specific condition of the animal essential for its continuance. 

 Good judges of the Dairy Cow are not, and probably never will be, 

 harmonious in relation to many of her characteristic points, and an^" 

 description of a model would meet with criticism. Therefore each 

 individual must speak and act on convictions resulting from his own 

 observations, and with no thought that his judgment is law. My cow 

 in size must be large. All daiiy qualities may exist in perfection in 

 a large animal, and otlier things being equal, she will yield the greater 

 quantity of milk, while her general care will be no more expensive 

 than a small one. Eventually she will come to the block as beef, and 

 whether she then weighs four hundred or eight hundred pounds 

 is a matter of much consequence to the pocket of her owner. ' She 

 must give every indication of possessing a strong, vigorous constitu- 

 tion, must be in perfect health, with every organ and function in nor- 

 mal activity. This in ilie first pU\ce because her product should be 

 healthy, and in the second, because there is no animal on the farm of 

 which so much hard, unintermitted work is required as of the good 

 milch cow. We expect her to nourish her young and bring it forth at 

 regular intervals, and from ten to eleven months of the year, morning 

 and evening, give us the "■ flowing pail of milk." 



The working horse and ox rest from lal)or one day in seven, but 

 she does not, neither does tlieir labor deplete the system of the nutri- 

 ment derived from food more rapidly or comi.letely thandoes hers. To 

 sustain the system under this exhaustive strain her digestive organs must 

 be largely devoloped and their action perfect. Heart and lungs must be 

 without taint of weakness, and have full play in a broad, deep, capa- 

 cious chest. However large of size she should be tine. Hair fine and 

 soft, skin thin and elastic, light boned in the legs, head, neck and 

 shoulders, but with frame broad in the region of the pelvis, and of 

 the chest. There should be ample development of the blood vessels 

 and connective tissues of the udder, and this all important organ 

 should be long and broad rather than deep, and, when not distended 

 with milk, as soft, including skin and gland, as the finest si)onge. 

 Her teats nuist be large and placed well out towai'd the corners of a 

 square udder, and look as if " made for use and not for ornament." 



