All animals of the bovine species in good state of health, to which no accident has happened, and whose escutcheons are of the first orders of each class, will manifest always, and without exception, as much for the production of milk as for generative ability.
Beauty of form, to my thinking, represents but an ideal, and although one ought to take it into consideration, it is a simple accessory without value of its own, when the question is that of the production of milk.
May I have been able to justify by this work the fruit of the experience of my whole life, the honor done me by many agricultural societies in admitting me to their membership, and by the government which has shared the expense of this new edition, with the twofold purpose of encouraging my efforts and facilitating the propagation of my method.
GUENON’S METHOD OF JUDGING OF THE VALUE OF STOCK.
Fifty years ago there was dawning upon the world the first ray of a great discovery. A star was rising in the agricultural world, which was about to shed new light, and like many other valuable discoveries, it was made by one among the lowly, and partly by chance. The author of this new discovery has said, “Error flies with the rapidity of lightning, all obstacles vanish before it. Truth, on the contrary, is admitted coldly, often even with doubt, suspicion, and distrust.” It is owing partly to this, partly to the fact that this new light was given to the world when the mind of farmers were not ready to receive new ideas of progress as they now seek them, and much to the fact that it was the invention of a foreigner described in a foreign tongue. True a translation of it was made through the medium of an American monthly magazine of agriculture; but it was one of limited circulation. At that time the number of periodicals devoted to that interest was few, and such new and important questions were not thoroughly discussed and the knowledge of them placed in every farm-house in the land, as it is at the present day. Shortly after the appearance of M. Guenon’s treatise in the magazine, it was reprinted in book form, and received the large circulation of sixty-five thousand copies, between that time and now, and the book most probably sells better to-day than it did then. By many who procured that book the subject was studied, and advantage taken of its revelations, being stored away in the reader’s mind for actual practice. By the great majority it was read, but not studied; driven from it by the apparent complications of the system and the two hundred sub-divisions of it; by many, perhaps, it was attempted to be put into practice, but without their having given the subject that close investigation which was needed to prove the system correct. It was mostly by this class of persons, because the system was not found to be infallible, that it was denounced and given up, even by men otherwise intelligent; as if anything human could be infallible. Thus it is that by the ignorant its revelations were received with incredulity, and by many of the intelligent with doubt; but to the earnest seekers after practical information, it has unfolded a mine of wealth, and they have proved the system by continuous experience, and found it to be the most reliable mode of judging of the value of every member of the bovine species.
It was a happy thought that suggested itself to the Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture, to have the system tested by uninterested parties. But extremely difficult, it was, to obtain persons to make the test. For those to whom application was made declined it on various grounds, principally because, as Guenon himself has stated in his latest edition, many pretended savans would endeavor to throw ridicule upon it; many others would identify the gentlemen making the tests with it, as if it was their system that they were testing; while not a few still more narrow-minded, would think they were trying to humbug them. Thus it was difficult to fill the places, which offered neither honor nor profit.
It will be seen, by these extracts, that the Governor appointed three experts to test the system. This they did in the summer of 1878, examining two hundred cows, jotting down their opinion of the yield, quality, and time of each of them, and afterwards printing them alongside of the reports of their owners, so that the public could form their own estimate of the results of the examinations of the commission. They are here reprinted, to show how it was carried out. Particular attention is called to the examinations of the blanketed cows in Thomas Gawthrop’s herd.