SHOW POINTS OF A HOLSTEIN COW. 
Looking the Animal Over. 
Will you toll us what to look for in a Holstein cow 
in order to pick out her show points? 
RINCIPLES OF EXCELLENCE.—Wlmt are the 
“show points” of a Holstein cow? Well, that 
is something of a question as to who the judge 
is going to he. No animal will win first prize at all 
of the shows for the simple reason that the same 
man does not always act as judge. So let us see if 
we cannot reason the thing out among ourselves. 
In the first place, the Holstein cow is a dairy ani¬ 
mal. Some of her more ardent admirers go so far 
as to claim that she is a dual-purpose animal. 
But 1 think these men make a mistake. For when 
the result of man's working for a long time to 
change the course of nature and induce bossy to 
give milk enough to raise three or four calves, and 
keep it up long after the calves cease to need the 
milk. Man can change the works of nature, hut lie 
has to pay for what he gets every time. lie can 
more fully develop one function, hut it is always 
at the expense of some other function. That is the 
reason why a cow cannot he an ideal dairy animal 
and an ideal beef animal at the same time. If you 
will accept the foregoing as facts, I think we can 
now go about the job of analysing our Holstein 
show cow. 
SALIENT POINTS.—In the first place, she must 
eat a lot of food, and for this purpose she must 
the hack is taken into consideration, hut I am 
afraid that those who do not understand the mean¬ 
ing of the phrase sometimes take it to mean that 
the cow should he fiat or “slab-sided.” By wedge- 
shaped we mean that she should he very wide at 
the hips, because there is to he a tremendous udder 
hung between her hind legs, and those legs must he 
well spread to make room for it. Then her hack 
should taper along to sharp, thin shoulder tops, 
because our cow carries no superfluous flesh, and 
nature has as usual asserted her authority and 
taken off from one end what we have added to the 
other. The neck will, of course, he thin also, hut 
wide—or, should I say deep—next to the shoulders 
and tapering nicely to the union of the head. The 
f. 
THE HOLSTEIN COW “KUPERUS WAI.KEB," No. !)74o7. 
4(51.2 POI NDS OF MILK IN SEVEN DAYS. 
Fm. :J2i). 
a Holstein cow possesses dual-purpose qualities she 
is not an ideal Holstein. You may rest assured 
that she is not so good a dairy animal as she ought 
to be, and I think that it would he better for her 
owners to keep her in the background, breed her to 
a hull of pronounced dairy type in the hopes of 
getting some heifers from her that lack her “dual- 
purpose" qualities, and veal her hull calves always. 
POPULAR IMPRESSIONS.—I can see right now 
that we are going to get into trouble in this mat¬ 
ter of the show cow. The judge likes to please the 
crowd, and the crowd likes a handsome, smooth 
animal with plenty of flesh, which of course makes 
graceful lines, and really a thing of beauty. Nature 
abhors sharp corners and ragged edges. She goes 
in for curves and plumpness every time. But the 
modern Holstein cow is not a natural thing. She is 
have a wide mouth with strong jaws. Here is a 
slap at the beauty idea right on the start. But the 
dainty, poor feeder will have the fine muzzle and 
the poorly developed jaw, and she is the cow we 
have no use for. If our cow eats a lot of food, it 
has to go somewhere. So she must have a lot of 
storage capacity. She must he of long body, deep 
and wide. Her ribs must he far apart—for a cow 
has only so many ribs anyhow, so if they form 
“slats” the length of her sides they must he placed 
a good way apart to reach. These ribs must also 
he well sprung; that is, they must he curved like a 
hoop. This, of course, makes more room for her 
several stomachs and other internal organs, not the 
least of which is the lungs. Then it is a pet phrase 
among writers on the dairy cow to say that she 
must he "wedge-shaped.” That is all right if only 
throat should he clean and not show enlarged 
glands. 
FURTHER CHARACTERISTIC’S.—The legs should 
he neat of hone and moderately short. But I think 
we should not expect too much in the way of short 
legs. We want a long hack, long neck, long ribs 
and a long tail. Now isn't it asking almost too 
much of Nature to give us all of these and then 
place stubby legs under our cow? Of course Nature 
can do it if she wants to. for she has the dachshund 
to prove it; but I think that few of us will main¬ 
tain that the dachshund's legs add very much to 
his beauty, and we will not strive for that type of 
cow. The cow's back should he straight clear back 
to the tail setting. A sloping rump shows weakness, 
and not only this, but we almost, invariably get 
poor forequarters of the udder, with the teats 
