98 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
herbage which are inadequate profitably to sustain the fat-secreting 
breeds. Grass-land on the clay soils on the sides of the uplands, and 
even on the poorer sands, is quite adequate to supply the means of 
making butter or cheese ; but it will very ill repay the person who at- 
tempts to feed cattle on herbage so inferior; while the rich alluvial 
feeding pastures which generally skirt the rivers, are far more profitably 
employed in raising summer beef than in the production ot milk, of 
cheese, or of butter. Some races of long-horns, of short-horns, or of 
middle horns, or even of polled animals, arc to be placed amongst the 
one class we have alluded to, and some amongst the other, and we pre- 
fer arranging the breeds most celebrated for the quantity or quality of 
their milk under the first head, and reserve the second to the races with 
special aptitude for fattening. 
The question arises very naturally how far it is possible, by external 
conformations of the individual animal, to detect its capabilities for the 
secretion of milk. There are instances in every breed where it is evi- 
dent nature has been more bountiful, or more niggardly, in bestowing 
the qualities calculated to produce the secretion for which the race may 
be celebrated ; and there are, doubtless, marks, well known to the dairy- 
man, which seldom fail to indicate the power of the animal in the range 
of qualities peculiar to his race. On the continent of Europe this has 
been professed to be carried to a very minute extent. Francois Guenon, 
a Frenchman, professed to have found, by close observation, a mode of 
deciding authoritatively, not only the quantity and quality of milk 
which would be given by any particular cow, but also the period for 
which she would retain her milk after calving, and this he proposed 
to do by external appearances alone, and these of a somewhat arbitrary 
kind. 
It is not within the compass of this work to 
give any thing like a description of the mode 
he adopted, now made public,* but the foun- 
dation of it is, his classification of all kinds of 
cattle into eight classes, or families ; each fam- 
ily is divided into three sections, according to 
size only, and each section is again subdivided 
into eight orders. 
The distinguishing marks by which he di- 
vides those are: 1. The Gravure, commencing 
at the udder, and extending to the bearing ; 
clam l FLAND itirfEA of ouraoirt 2. The Epis, a soft brush of hair upon the 
8YSTKU. animal ; and 3, Contrepoil, or hair growing 
the contrary way. The peculiarities of these marks constitute the dis- 
tinction between the families and orders. Thus, if the gravure be largo, 
the reservoir of milk will be large, and the product abundant; if it be 
formed of fine hair, if the skin be yellowish, and if a kind of bran powder 
which comes off the skin be of that color, they are all signs of a good 
* This work, with the original figures and a full elucidation of the system, can be 
procured of C. M. Saxton, 25 Park Row, New York. It is an ingenious and plausi- 
ble system, and well worthy the attention of dairymen. — E d. 
