A PERFECT COW—DUCHESS—Imported Jersey, belonging to Chas. L. Sharpless.
Our Mode of Judging Stock.
The beauty of the Guenon system is, that it is an aid to all other modes of selecting stock, and therefore, it gives a decided advantage to the person who understands it over the one who does not. For instance, let two buyers go into a herd, and let them be equal judges of stock, one of them will be very apt to buy a bastard, while the other one would very positively leave her alone, simply because the latter has a knowledge of the best and surest mode of all modes of judging stock. And this knowledge does not prevent him from using his half a dozen other modes of deciding its merits, but aids them. So, too, in selecting a bull for a propagator, the believer in Guenon will select one with a good escutcheon and a fine skin, while the other will decide almost entirely by the form. And so with calves, the one who selects calves by the Guenon marks will be pretty sure to have a dairy of productive cows, while the other will have to dispose of some unprofitable ones. The one makes money, because he is working intelligently with every light of science, while the other is only guessing pretty well.
We first look at a cow from the front, and see that she widens as she gets back to her hips, or is wedge-shaped. Next we look at her side, and we again see that she rises on her back and descends on the belly as she goes back to the tail, or in other words she is wedge-shaped, too, from this point of view. These two looks at her have enabled us to see that she has a feminine appearance; that her head is small and neat in proportion to her body, with a waxy small horn, a mild but large eye, a broad muzzle, and that it is well set on her neck; that she has a good chest, and large deep paunch, with large full ribs, fuller below and joined to a rather high back bone; that is to say she has not the breadth of back we look for in a beef animal. If the chine is double, it indicates a cow above the average; if the chine is single, sometimes we can lay our three fingers in three depressions in it at about the middle of it, showing that she is a loose rangy cow, and fitted for her work. Now we will look at her udder and see that it runs forward as level as possible to the belly, and that it is large, with four good-sized, well-shaped teats slightly strutting from each quarter. Now we gently approach her, and pat her to gain her confidence, and get a chance to feel her hide, her milk veins, and examine her escutcheon. If we find her skin is thin, soft, and greasy, with short fine hair, with rather a furry nature, and showing the skin yellow under it; that her udder and her perineum have soft thin skin, with very short furry hair; that her milk veins are large, zig-zag, and knotty, entering the body with good-sized holes, and particularly if this vein is double, extending and ramifying over the udder well back in prominent veins, and if the veins extend over the perineum, we may then, with great confidence, look for a large well-shaped and formed escutcheon, marked first class, order first, by an oval on each side of the back of the udder, and perhaps two thigh ovals or dips where the vertical escutcheon rises from the broad or thigh escutcheon; and just to finish and find all points corroborating, we will look on the vertical escutcheon for some spots of oily lemon colored dandruff, and at the end of her neat, lightly made tail to find some large yellow pieces of dandruff. We don’t like to see it dry and brown; and as we step back from her, we just give a parting look to see that her hips are rather large, bony, somewhat drooping, that her capacious udder has room to project between her legs.
Then, we feel sure that a loose, open made cow, rather pointed, or sharp and well-defined, and the contrary of what we would look for in a flesh or beef producing animal; with a skin mellow and yellow, covered with soft, fine hair, and the nearer it comes to the quality and color of a first class Guernsey or Jersey cow, breeds which have for hundreds of years been bred for butter making, then we repeat we know she must be a good, rich milker and butter maker; for we never saw a thick, hard skin cow, with coarse, long hair, that was a good butter maker, or fit for anything but giving poor milk, if a strong milker.
Our preference is for a medium sized cow, one that will dress five hundred and fifty or six hundred pounds; and, as far as our observation goes, a Jersey sire, with an Ayrshire dam, is the best cross for a milk and butter cow, and the most profitable for the amount of food consumed; though a Jersey or Guernsey sire to the milking stock of Durhams, or a Holstein, or a large yielding native cow, will produce a better cow for butter than the mother was.
To get thorough practice in valuing the escutcheon, take this book in hand, and go into your dairy-yard; compare the escutcheon of each cow with her picture in this book; see what it calls for time and quantity, and then thoroughly test your cow; don’t guess at it, as most farmers do; and make your own comparisons. Remember the size and class of the escutcheon will give you the quantity and time; the skin and hair will give you the quality; and always remembering the size of the cow, and of what breed she is, for they must qualify your opinion somewhat.
Opinions of the System.
A writer in the Country Gentleman of July 17, 1879, S. Hoxie, of Whitestown, New York, so thoroughly expresses our experience and convictions, that we are led to quote it: