THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 65 



fat. Considering these, one at a time, it is always well to begin 

 at the head. 



Constitution is indicated, first by large nostrils. Nothing 

 purifies the blood except oxygen and no oxygen ever reaches the 

 lungs and comes in contact with the blood except through the 

 air which the animal breathes. If the nostrils are small the 

 amount of air is limited or the cow must breathe twice as rapidly 

 as if her nostrils were larger. The respiration of cows is prac- 

 tically the same. Therefore, cows with small nostrils do not take 

 into their lungs the same great amount of fresh air and oxygen 

 that cows with larger nostrils do. Passing back it is desirable 

 that the cow be deep from the top of the shoulder to the floor of 

 the chest, well spring in the front ribs and deep in the heart girth. 

 A cow that is shallow in the chest and heart girth and slab-sided 

 in the front ribs is considered lacking in constitution. It should 

 be remembered that the dairy cow is an extremely hard worked 

 animal. A cow that will produce in one year 18,000 pounds or 

 even 10,000 pounds of milk has accomplished more in providing 

 food for mankind than three or four steers working the same 

 length of time would have done. Because of the fact that she 

 works as persistently as she does and that she is stabled six or 

 eight months out of each year in a barn which is too often cold, 

 dark, damp and poorly ventilated, where she is subjected to dis- 

 ease germs of tuberculosis, cow pneumonia, garget, contagious 

 abortion and other diseases, it is absolutely necessary that all in- 

 dications of rugged constitution be well developed. I appreciate 

 the fact that in this community you build your barns with a great 

 number of windows so that the light, sunshine and fresh air can 

 enter them. 



In Iowa and in other states where I have traveled it is very 

 seldom that more than one or two very small windows are to be 

 seen even in great, magnificent farm barns that have been built 

 at great expense. It should be realized that whenever barns are 

 built and boarded up tight without windows or fresh air ducts 

 the light, sunshine and fresh air, which cost nothing and are ab- 



