eo 
ILLUSTRATED STOCIC DOCTOR, 
Usefulness. 
The usefulness of the dairy cow is in her udder, and toward the udder, 
its shape and its yield, all the capabilities of the cow should be directed. 
We may first view it a ; a reservoir for the milk. As such, it must bo 
targe and capacious, with broad foundations, extending well behind and 
well forward, with distinct attachments ; broad and square, viewed lima 
behind, the sole level and broad, tho lobes even-sized, and teats ev only 
distributed ; the whole udder firmly attached, with skin loose and elastic. 
Such a form gives great space for the secreted milk, and for the lodgment 
of the glands, while allowing the changes from an empty to a full vessel. 
The glands should be free from lumps of fat and muscle, well set up in 
the body when the cow is dry, and loosely covered with the soft and clastic 
skin, without trace of flabbiness. Such a covering allows for extension 
when the animal is in milk, while the glands arc kept in proximity i.itr 
the blood-vessels that supply them. The necessities of the lacteal glands- 
arc larger supplies of blood from which milk can bo secreted, and this 
harmonizes with the demands of the udder as a storehouse. For broad 
attachments means broad belly or abundance of space for the digestive 
organs, from which all nutriment must originate. The blood is furnished 
to the glands of the udder by large and numerous arteries. As secretion 
is dependent on the freedom of supply of blood to tho part, and a copious 
flow, wc find branches coming from different arterial, trunks and freely 
anastomozing with, each other. Although these arteries arc internal and 
out of sight, yet fortunately the veins which carry tho blood from the 
udder pass a. mg tho surface, and from their size and other characteristics 
indicate the quantity of blood not only which they carry away, but which 
must have passed through tho glands from the arteries. These return 
\ eins pass both backward and forward. Those passing forward are known 
as the milk veins, and the size of these superficial veins on either side of 
the belly, and the size of the orifices into which they disappear, arc excel, 
lent points to determine the milking probability of the cow. Still better 
Ls it to find, in addition, the veins in the perineum, which also return from 
the udder, prominent and circuitous. 
Escutcheon. 
The escutcheon is now generally conceded to be a good indication of 
milk in the cow. This mark is sufficiently well known not to require de- 
scription in detail. I think a broad escutcheon is fully as good a sign as 
a long one ; that quantity or quality mean more than shape, yet I "'ouid 
not discard the shape entirely. One error must, however, be avoided. 
U may be well to compare the size of escutcheon of cows of one breed. 
