THE JERSEY, ALDERNEY AND GUERNSEY COW. 37 



prove the breed by giving it the characteristics of larger 

 races, else we had better breed Short-horns or Ayrshires 

 at once. 



" There are physiological reasons why it is impossible 

 to combine the rich creaming quality of the Jersey with 

 the fattening quality of the Short-horns. In the one 

 case or in the other the most perfect result is to be 

 obtained by directing the deposition of fat either to the 

 adipose tissues or to the lacteal organs. Previous 

 experience in breeding leaves us no ground to suppose 

 that the highest perfection of both can be obtained in 

 the case of an individual animal, and it is doubtless an 

 axiom that the more we enrich the milk the more do 

 we impoverish the body, and vice versa. Within certain 

 limits there is, of course, an advantage in increasing the 

 flow of milk, but this should not be carried to such a 

 degree that, in the vital labor of secreting a large 

 amount of the fluid, fat-forming matter, which would 

 otherwise be deposited as cream, shall be consumed in 

 the production of the animal heat whose elimination 

 is incident to all vital processes. We can conceive a 

 case In which the chief energies of the animal organiza- 

 tion are devoted to the secretion of a copious flow of 

 milk, thereby consuming a large proportion of the fat- 

 forming matter which, under more normal circum- 

 stances, would have taken the form of cream. As a 

 rule, though it is a rule with many exceptions, cows that 

 yield extraordinary amounts of milk yield thin milk. 

 This is a recognized fact among farmers, but there are 



