Jersey Cattle and tlwir Management 
225 
stand at over 500/., whilst the fourth volume, just issued (1880), 
brinjrs the numbers to : — foundation stock bulls, 320 ; cows, 
2223; p(>dijrree stock bulls, 223; cows, 312. 
It will thus be seen that an animal entered in the Island 
Herd-book is about equal in personal merit to one receiving a 
prize or commendation at one of our shows. No weedy or 
defective animal, although the offspring of excellent parents, is 
allowed to be entered ; so that, however long the pedigree of a 
registered animal may be, the stranger may rest assured, that, 
unless meritorious, it can have no place in their Herd-book. 
Assurance of this will tend greatly to encourage the value of 
the Island pedigree stock in the future, and the system is one 
commendable to the notice of members of Herd-book societies 
in this country. For the forced and obese state in which prize 
animals are seen at our own Agricultural Societies, from the 
Royal downwards, distinctly tends, except in very few instances, 
to the deterioration, and not to the improvement of our British 
breeds. Our Herd-books simply record the produce of bulls 
and cows. They give no assistance to the uninitiated in dis- 
covering the merit or defect of the animal recorded. Thus our 
great national Agricultural and Herd-book Societies, with large 
funds at command, though working directly for the improve- 
ment of the British breeds, are indirectly encouraging the 
unnatural forcing of animals on the one hand ; whilst on the 
other, the propagation of highly-bred offspring, from parents 
often weedy and delicate, is in no wise checked. 
Special prizes are given at the Island shows for a system 
comparatively unknown and somewhat ridiculed in this country. 
This is the Guenon system, and prizes are awarded to both the 
bulls and cows showing the richest types. The system has been 
known and practised for more than half a century in France. 
Francois Guenon, a poor studious lad, whilst tending his milch 
cow in his native province in France, observed a growth of the 
hair above the udder the reverse way, and he noticed that when 
this hair was scratched a kind of bran or powder fell from it. 
He reasoned that as plants had signs for their good or bad 
qualities, there might be analogous signs in the animal kingdom. 
He examined other cows ; and concluded, from the various 
sizes, ways, and forms in which the reversed hair, now called 
the escutcheon, grew in these parts, that the good or bad milking 
properties of animals might be ascertained even before they 
calved. After long and wide experience, he arranged animals 
into three groups — large, middle, and small size. He divided 
the escutcheon signs into eight orders, subdividing these again 
into eight classes, and found that he could determine the 
quantity and quality of a cow's milk daily, and the longest 
VOL. XVII. — S. S. Q 
