EIGHTH CLASS.
First order (fig. 15) will give fifteen quarts per day; time, eight months. Skin in escutcheon reddish-yellow and silky, hair fine, teats far apart. The eighth order (fig. 16) yields two and a half quarts a day, and dries up on getting with calf.
Fig. 15. Fig. 16.
Order 1. Horizontal Cut Cow. Order 8.
Each class of cows has a kind called bastards, among those whose escutcheons would otherwise indicate the first order of their class: these often deceive the most practised eye. The only remedy is to become familiar with the infallible marks given by Guenon by which bastards may be known. This defect will account for the irregularity of many cows, and their suddenly going dry on becoming with calf, and often for the bad quality of their milk. They are distinguished by the lines of ascending and descending hair in their escutcheon.
Fig. 17. Fig. 18. Fig. 19.
In the Flanders cow (fig. 17) there are two bastards; one distinguished by the fact that the hair forming the line of the escutcheon bristles up, like beards on a head of grain, instead of lying smooth, as in the genuine cow; they project over the intersection of the ascending and descending hair in a very bristling manner. The other bastard of the Flanders cow is known by having an oval patch of downward growing hair, about eight inches below the vulva, and in a line with it; in the large cows it is four inches long, and two and a half wide, and the hair within it always of a lighter color than that surrounding it. Cows of this mark are always imperfect. In the bastards, the skin on the escutcheon is usually reddish; it is smooth to the touch, and yields no dandruff.
Bastards of the SELVAGE COW are known by two oval patches of ascending hair, one on each side of the vulva, four or five inches long, by an inch and a half wide (fig. 18). The larger the spot, and the coarser the hair, the more defective they prove, and vice versa.