ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



4S 



The first thing to look at is the cow's head. She's got to have a gobd 

 head, or she can't be a very big producer. Broad between the eyes, with 

 a large brain, and a mild, intelligent eye. This milk production is the 

 result of nervous energy, and it takes a strong brain to make a strong: 

 spinal cord clear through the column. 



When satisfied with the head, I look at her jaw to see if it is strong 

 and muscular. Then I look at the depth through the body. The next 

 thing to see if she has large capacity for handling and digesting the great 

 amount of food that her strong jaws are able to eat. Then I see that she 

 is well cut up under the throat; that she has a slim neck, and then see 

 that she is thick through, has good large heart room. Brown Bessie 

 you could almost put your fingers under her shoulders between there 

 (indicating chart) and her neck. Then I look to see that she has a 

 good and strong bony structure, all around the strong spinal column; 

 that the back bone is strong. Then see that the ribs are wide apart — 

 the sections of the bones are wide apart for the reason that the nerves 

 come from the spinal cord through the section of the backbone and go 

 down here to make milk, and for the nerves to come out there, there 

 must be a space. This openness goes clear to the end of the tail in some 

 cows. Brown Bessie's comes below the point of the hock. No more 

 bones there, but open. I see that she is thick through here where the 

 organs of maturity are. The point of her hip is down there, her back- 

 side is between her hips. In a beef animal you can lay a stick on to one 

 point of one hip to the other and just touch the top of the backbone. 



Then I follow on further to see that instead of being rounded out 

 here, she is cut out. You come behind her and her thighs are thin, and 

 then above the udder is a sort of a valley, a wide opening groove, and then 

 in front of the hind legs it arcTies up. What for? So as to give room for 

 the great, magnificent udder she has got to have to be a good producer. 



Here is another thing — the milk veins. The glood comes through 

 the inside down to the udder in its work of making milk and returns 

 from the udder back to the heart to he milk veins, and here is an open- 

 ing through the chest up to the heart. If the milk veins are large and 



