36 THE COW 



keen of scent or as fleet of foot, nor can we climb 

 trees or resist cold as did our savage ancestors, 

 but in place of these powers we have gained other 

 attributes that are infinitely more worth while. 



During the centuries the cow has left behind 

 many habits and her instincts grow progressively 

 more feeble. Once she had to live by her wits, to 

 avoid and, if necessary, to fight off her enemies and 

 to search for a food supply which was often scanty 

 and always uncertain, but under the care of man 

 she has become the most pampered of animals. 

 Our modern idea of dairy conditions is that the 

 cow shall never be allowed to be hungry or thirsty 

 or cold. She is waited on with the most as- 

 siduous attention, for the owner knows that dis- 

 comfort on her part will immediately be reflected 

 in a decreased milk-flow. Thus her special senses 

 are slowly dying, but two functions have at the 

 same time been abnormally developed, her udder 

 and her digestive apparatus. Holstein cows have 

 given nearly thirty times their own weight of milk 

 in a year — a marvelous performance made pos- 

 sible only by the fact that along with this abnormal 

 development of the mammary glands there has 

 been an equally remarkable development of the 

 digestive function. The ideal dairy cow tends to 

 approach the status of the queen bee, in which all 

 the ordinary habits and instincts of the bee have 

 been made subservient to an almost helpless or- 

 ganism that must be fed great quantities of pre- 



