1 
V T oi.. LXX. No. 4131. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 30, 1911. 
WEEKLY. $1.00 PER YEAR. 
is for safety. The phrase “narrow between the horns” 
means that the cow has a high forehead; for width 
between the eyes, as indicating brain power, is very 
desirable. A dished face (i. e., turn-up nose) is very 
pretty, and beauty is the Jersey’s strong point; but 
many great animals have perfectly straight noses and 
long faces. Once in a while one sees a Roman nose 
on a good cow. The nostril should be open. This is 
very important. Many breeders place great stress on 
the broad muzzle with full muscular lips. I have seen 
very wide muzzles on very delicate cows and small 
mouths on good hearty feeders, and personally I do 
not think there is much milk to be deduced from a 
big mouth. A thin lip indicates a nervous organiza¬ 
tion, and take away a cow’s nerve and she is worth¬ 
less. I would not put too much stress on the jaw; I 
would consider her appetite and digestion as of more 
THE POINTS OF A JERSEY COW. Fro. 501 
consequence than outward outline in this case. 
Neck thin, rather long, zvith clean throat; thin at 
withers (5). The cow should be neither masculine 
nor beefy. The eye should be large and placid; but 
as the expression of a cow’s eye usually reflects the 
way you treat her, lack of placidity may mislead. A 
bloodshot, round, protruding cow’s eye is, however, 
very suspicious, and a very bad augury for milk 
production. A bloodshot eye, like a mustang’s, is not 
desirable in a bull either. Wise, reasonable sires be¬ 
get docile daughters, but the big, round, protruding 
eye, like a fly’s, is much admired in bulls. Cows 
with black eyes and yellow eyelids, such as arise from 
breeding Guernseys and Jerseys together, or with rose- 
colored irids and white eyelashes such as come from 
crossing Herefords and Guernseys, are often seen in 
the herds of superb milkers. Jersey cows in health 
have extremely brilliant eyes, and their vigor is indi¬ 
cative in the flash of their eyes. A Jersey cow should 
be ewe-necked, i. e., the neck should curve downward 
between the withers and the back of the head (c). 
The generous milk-giver is characterized by long 
bones and loose joints, except the leg bones which 
have been bred short (but mistakenly) and in the 
very best specimens are now longer; they should be 
long enough to give comfortable room for a milk 
pail under full udder. The bones of the spine should 
be long. Thus we have the long ewe-neck, the long 
back, the long hips, and the very long, thin tail, all of 
prime importance, because they go together. A short¬ 
necked cow may be a good milker, but she is beefy; 
and a cow with a short, thick tail is surely beefy. The 
tail ought to reach the hocks; when full grown, tails 
of good milkers usually come within two inches of 
them at least. In the 
bull the longer neck is 
crested, which makes it 
appear thicker, but it 
should never be short. 
The withers (5) must 
he thin. A cow that 
fattens instead of giving 
milk shows it on the 
withers first; heifers will 
often be plump there, but 
milk off; but a cow in 
milk must be thin on the 
shoulder if she is to 
show a profit. It has 
been well established, 
too, that sharp withers 
go with a milking tem¬ 
perament. The sharper 
the more profitable milk¬ 
er. In my own experi¬ 
ence I have obtained 
much milk from cows 
with somewhat rounded 
withers, but I have in¬ 
variably paid more for 
it. However, the new de¬ 
mand for heartgirth as 
an evidence of constitu¬ 
tion is tending to widen 
the withers and shoul¬ 
ders. Personally I do not 
believe that broad shoul¬ 
ders are necessary for a 
cow’s constitution, and I 
think the matter is being 
overdone with the result 
of bringing forward 
many beefy cows to dis¬ 
appoint their buyers. Breeders that favor the 
broad shoulders look to the lean, deer-like head as an 
offset to the loss of the wedge shape which is certain 
when the shoulders are broadened. A man with a 
herd to grade up knows well that no cow he ever 
owned ever died because her heart was weak; but if 
he looks through his herd and sees a number of 
short-necked, wide-shouldered, square-built animals he 
knows quite as well that the weakness in his pocket- 
book has something to do with trying to get milk 
from beef types. A plump heifer is not necessarily a 
spoilt heifer; during the first year’s lactation they 
alter amazingly if fed right. 
Body (33). Lung capacity as indicated by depth 
and breadth through the body just back of the fore¬ 
legs, however, counts five points, for which the desire 
to obtain endurance and a supposed possible freedom 
wai 
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SELECTING THE DAIRY BULL. 
Best Half of the Herd. 
Part I. 
“How shall a farmer with his present herd build up 
a family of well-shaped, well-bred and profitable ani¬ 
mals?” First buy a dozen chemist’s test tubes and set 
the' milk of every cow to see how much cream will 
rise. These test tubes are perhaps eight inches long 
and more than an inch in diameter, without necks; 
they show the cream to perfection, and if you wish 
to go further and test it they will pour out cleaner of 
cream than other bottles. In a cream test with acid 
it is necessary to mix the cream with the milk per¬ 
fectly before removing (with a pipette) the necessary 
17 cubic centimeters. The number of months each 
cow has been in lactation should be considered in 
these tests, as the cream 
grows thicker as lacta¬ 
tion advances. If you 
have weighed your milk 
and measured your 
cream and put the 
amount down in a memo¬ 
randum book with the 
date, you have taken the 
first step toward improv¬ 
ing your herd. You will 
be almost certain to buy 
a milk scale and a Bab¬ 
cock tester so as to do it 
thoroughly after trying 
a little while to get at 
the facts in a cruder 
way. 
The next thing to do 
is to take the following 
score card into the barn 
and go over each cow by 
its help, so as- to see 
what good judges con¬ 
sider the best type, and 
how far your best milk¬ 
ers conform to it. This 
is a Jersey .score card. I 
give it because I breed 
Jerseys and know their 
points. But as the Jer¬ 
sey is the ideal cream 
cow you will find that 
what holds good for Jer¬ 
seys is also true to a 
great extent of other 
milking strains. The va¬ 
rious parts of cow re¬ 
ferred to in scale of 
points are shown by numbers in the illustration, 
Fig. 501, as follows. (1), horn; (2), withers; (3), 
back; (4), paunch; (5), tail; (6), milk veins. 
The points are gathered under nine heads of differ¬ 
ing value as set forth by different breeders, but total 
100 in each case. Head, medium in size; lean; face 
dished; broad between the eyes, narrow between the 
horns (4). Eyes full and placid; horns small to 
medium, incurving; muzzle broad with muscular lips; 
strong tinder jaw (3). The head of a Jersey cow 
should be dainty; a coarse head is a sign of poor 
milking qualities, and a plump cheek is fatal. The 
lean face showing its veins goes with milk produc¬ 
tion. The horn should be small, on the same prin¬ 
ciple; it shows the quality of the animal’s bone. The 
texture of the horn is important; it should be waxy 
amber if possible, while the prescribed inward curve 
