Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

It may be remarked, at the outset, that the fact that the best of the signs of a great and good milker adopted by Guénon are generally found united with the best forms and marks almost universally admitted and practised upon by good judges, gives, at least, some plausibility to the system, while the importance of it, if it be correct, is sufficient to demand a careful examination. Every good judge of a milch cow, for instance, wants to see in her a small, fine head, with short and yellowish horns; a soft, delicate, and close coat of hair; a skin soft and flexible over the rump; broad, well-spread ribs, covered with a loose skin of medium thickness; a broad chest; a long, slender tail; straight hind legs; a large, regularly-formed udder, covered with short, close, silky hair; four teats of equal size and length, set wide apart; large, projecting lacteal veins, which run along under the belly from the udder towards the fore legs, forming a fork at the end, and finally losing themselves in a round cavity; and when these points, or any considerable number of them, are found united in a cow, she would be pronounced a good milker. An animal in which these signs are found would rarely fail of having a good “milk-mirror,” or escutcheon; on which Guénon, after many years of careful observation and experiment, came to lay particular stress; and on the basis of which he built up a system or theory so complicated as to be of little practical value compared with what it might have been had he seen fit to simplify it so as to bring it within the easy comprehension of the farmer. As one means of forming a judgment of the milking qualities, however, it must be regarded as very important, since it is unquestionably sustained by facts in a very large majority of cases.

The milk-mirror, or escutcheon, is formed by the hair above the udder, extending upwards between the thighs, growing in an opposite direction from that of other parts of the body. In well-formed mirrors, found only in cows which have the arteries which supply the milky glands large and fully developed, it ordinarily begins between the four teats in the middle, and ascends to the vulva, and sometimes even higher, the hair growing upwards. The direction of the hair is subordinate to that of the arteries; for the relation existing between the direction of the hair above the udder and the activity of the milky glands is apparent on a careful examination of all the cases. When the lower part of the mirror is large and broad, with the hair growing from below upwards, and extending well out on the thighs, it indicates that the arteries which supply the milky glands, and which are situated just behind it, are large and capable of conveying much blood, and of giving great activity to the functions of secretion.

Now, in the bull, the arteries which correspond to the mammary or lacteal arteries of the cow are not so fully developed; and the escutcheons are smaller, shorter, and narrower. Guénon applied the same name, milk-mirror, to these marks in the bull; and the natural inference was, that there should exist a correspondence or similarity in the mirror of the bull and the cow which are coupled for the purpose of producing an offspring fit for the dairy,—that the mirror in the bull should be of the same class, or of a better class than that of the cow.

It is confidently asserted by the advocates of Guénon’s method, and with much show of reason, that the very large proportion of cows of bad or indifferent milking qualities, compared with the good, is owing to the mistakes in selecting bulls without reference to the proper marks or points. As to the transmission of the milk-mirror, it has been found in many cases that bulls sprung from cows with good mirrors had smaller and more heart-shaped mirrors, spreading out pretty broad upon the thighs. Pabst, a successful German breeder, says that he has used such bulls for three years, and that the milk-mirrors were transmitted in the majority of the male progeny, and in nearly every case very large and beautiful mirrors were given to the heifer-calves. A son of the bull with which he began was serving at the time of which he speaks, having a mirror more highly developed than his sire, and the first calves of his get had also very large milk-mirrors. The female offspring of the first bull of good milk-mirror promised first rate, though they had not then come in. His inference is, that in breeding from cows noted as milkers regard should be had to the form of the mirror on the bull, and the chance of his transmitting it. If any credit is due to this ingenious method, it may be laid down, as a principle in the selection of a bull to get dairy stock, that the one possessing the largest and best-developed milk-mirror is the best for the purpose, and will be most likely to get milkers of large quantity and continued flow. This method will be more fully developed in the chapter on the [Selection of Milch Cows].

But, however careful we may be to select good milkers, and to breed from them with the hope of improvement, it is by no means easy to select such as are capable of transmitting their qualities to their offspring. This is rendered still more difficult by the fact that there is no known mark to indicate it, and we are left to use our own judgment; for, in the case of bulls, we are often obliged to give them up before their progeny have arrived at an age to show their qualities by actual trial. We are thrown back, therefore, upon their external marks. But, as M. Magne, a very sensible French writer, justly observes in his admirable little work (Choix des Vaches Latières, p. 86, Paris, 1857), the fixed characteristics which have existed in races for several generations will be transmitted with most certainty. Hence the importance, he says, of selecting milch cows from good breeds and good families, and especially, in breeding stock, of selecting carefully both male and female. The male designed to get dairy stock ought to possess the structure which, in the cow, indicates the greatest activity of the mammary glands, as fineness of form, mellowness of skin, large hind quarters, large and well-developed veins and escutcheon.

A cow of a race or family not noted as milkers may chance to be an excellent milker, and this is enough, if we do not desire to breed from her; but she would not transmit her exceptional qualities like a cow of which these qualities were the fixed characteristics, constant and transmissible in the breed. These considerations apply also, as already said, in the choice of a bull. The attention of practical men has been so much directed to the best points of good cows, of late years, that it becomes necessary to study to propagate these, if the breeder desires to find buyers for his stock. The buyer judges more from external signs than from the intrinsic qualities of the cow, with which he may not be acquainted.

To explain the variations in the transmission of milking qualities, we should bear in mind that these qualities are not found in wild cows, and that they are developed only when man can, by a particular course of treatment, as by the act of milking, the separation of the sexes, etc., cause certain natural powers to act with greater strength than others; that they incline to disappear as soon as these powers, the nature of the soil, the peculiarities of climate, the properties of plants, and the temperament of the cows, are permitted to act according to the original plan of creation; so that the variations which we consider as sports of nature are incontestible proofs of the uniformity of her works.

It is only by observing animals carefully, by noting accurately their good qualities and their faults, by watching the circumstances in which individuals are produced, raised, and kept, that we can account for what seems to us a sport or caprice of nature. We can then tell, first, how the same bull and cow have produced three calves with different properties; and, secondly, trace out the rules which we are to follow, to be almost uniformly successful in obtaining stock of the best quality.

Experience shows that the qualities which are transmitted with most certainty depend on the most important organs of life; and so, in the forms of the viscera and the skeleton, variations are rare, not only in breeds of the same species, but in different species of the same genera.

Moreover, in cases where the transmission of properties is so uncertain as to seem the result of caprice in nature, these properties are formed by superficial organs,—by the skin, the horns, the state of the hair, etc.