CHAPTER XI. 

 JUDGING DAIRY CATTLE. 



Purpose of the Dairy Animal. — The purpose of the dairy 

 animal, and therefore the fundamental factors in judging, 

 are strikingly different from any other farm animal. The 

 indications of intrinsic value and capacity are determined 

 from an entirely different viewpoint than in judging the horse 

 or block animals. The form is not only different but its 

 associated attributes for attainment of purpose are deeper 

 lying than in other animals. From the standpoint of 

 capacity the development of the vital organs are of much 

 greater importance in the dairy animal than in any other. 

 For example, the direct association of the circulatory system 

 with milk-giving capacity, which is the important and one 

 vital attainment of the dairy animal, represents quite 

 forcibly the depth of this statement. Without a strong cir- 

 culatory system, whereby the food can be manufactured into 

 milk through the various processes of digestion, absorption, 

 and assimilation the capacity of the dairy animal would be 

 limited. The limitation would depend on the degree of 

 development of the circulatory system. An animal with a 

 weakened system would have low vitality and therefore 

 not only would it be limited in point of present attainment, 

 but the durability and persistency of production would be 

 lessened in the offspring. 



As the dairy animal gives off the products of food diges- 

 tion, absorption and assimilation, daily the natural result 

 would be an animal with the spare, open conformation such 

 as the dairy animal possesses. The block animals, which 

 accumulate the products of the manufactured food, assume 

 an entirely different form. Instead of the food products 

 being given off daily there is an accumulation on the body 

 of the animal, based on dry matter, a similar or like amount 



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