476 Guenon^s System of Selecting Cows hy the Escutcheon. 
by sixty ; for they drop much faster, in proportion, as they 
descend in the class to the sixth order. 
Now, as a general rule, it is safest not to buy a cow below 
the fourth order of any class, and, of most of them, unsafe below 
the third order. 
The ten classes and six orders are represented by sixty 
escutcheons, and to each class there is a bastard escutcheon, 
making ten more, or seventy, to which we may add ten classes 
of bulls of three orders each, or thirty, making in all a hundred 
varieties of escutcheons to learn. But omitting the orders below 
the third, as they are not necessary to be learned, reduces them 
by thirty ; and as the bastards are exactly the same, with only 
two varieties of bastard-marks, we need learn but two, so that cuts 
off eight more ; then, as the bulls are marked the same as the 
cows, we cut off thirty more ; so that the hundred is reduced to 
only thirty-two that it is necessary to be well acquainted with. 
These we simplify again by calling your attention to the 
fact that the thigh-escutcheons are all very much alike ; there- 
fore, when you have learned one, you have learned all, the only 
difference being the reduced size and some imperfections. It is 
the vertical portion that decides the class in which the cow is 
to be ranked ; therefore you will become familiar with the ten 
vertical portions of the escutcheons. With this point gained, 
and the judgment properly exercised to tell to which order of 
the class you have decided the cow belongs, and a proper sense 
of handling the skin and hair, you see the system is very simple, 
and soon acquired. 
Tlie Escutcheon. — We have now the outline of Guenon's 
system ; let us examine more in detail into the variety of 
escutcheons. The drawings given (pp. 478-483) represent the 
iirst order of the ten classes, with the quantity given by each 
class and the length of time they will milk. The quality, of 
course, is indicated by each animal. 
The escutcheon is that surface of the udder, the perinaeum, 
and the thighs, where the hair grows upward. On all the 
remainder of the animal the hair grows downward. Escutcheons 
extend, according to their class, from the centre of the four teats 
to the level of the upper extremity of the vulva, and may extend 
in breadth from the middle of the hinder surface of one leg to 
the middle of the hinder surface of the other. By their form or 
configuration, escutcheons characterise and distinguish the ten 
families which together constitute Guenon's classification. 
Each of the classes, or families, is of fixed form, always 
similar to itself, but variable in the dimensions of its surface, 
and is estimated by the limits of the escutcheon. The extreme 
limits are the hams, the udder, and vulva. It is the variation 
