“Some Testimony.—Mr. L. A. Hansen, of Bay St. Louis, writes, in a letter to the Country Gentleman:
“I served my apprenticeship for three years on a dairy farm with two hundred cows, performing all the labor appertaining to a farm, the same as one of the hired men. After this, for twenty years, I had dairies of from eighty to one hundred and seventy cows. Living in the best dairy country then known, and our butter commanding the very highest market prices in London, England, (taking the premium at a butter exhibition in London,) we considered it the best policy to buy our cows instead of raising them, and I consequently had to purchase from twenty to thirty cows every year. Having adopted the Guenon system as a helping guide in my purchases, I necessarily examined more than a hundred cows annually, besides having under daily observation my own cows and those of the neighboring dairy farms. Thus, I had continual practice through a number of years. The classifications of the professor, mentioned in my former article, were, with very rare exceptions, right. In the first two classes, they did not fail once; in the lower classes, more frequently; but as the lower classes, with their sub-division, are of no importance to the dairyman—only the two first being fit for a dairy—the study of them becomes unnecessary, and it is of little avail if they are minutely correct.
“As nothing in this world is perfect, we cannot reasonably expect the Guenon system to be without defects; but, as already stated above, the imperfection is to be looked for in that part which is immaterial for practical application. Under all circumstances, as far as my experience goes, the Guenon theory will always remain a valuable guide in selecting milk cows.”
“Mr. L. S. Hardin writes, in a prize essay:
“Very few, if any, modern writers upon cattle have accepted the complicated theory of Guenon, while no two of them agree as to the extent in value of the escutcheon. As a point of beauty, it should certainly be cultivated in the herd. As to its practical value for indicating the milking qualities of the cow, my experience is that a finely-developed escutcheon is rarely seen on a poor milker, while many excellent milkers have very small or no escutcheons at all. In other words, its presence is a good sign, while its absence is not necessarily a cause for distrust. Milk-veins, as an indication for milking capacity, are of about the same value as the escutcheon.”
“The editor of the Jersey Bulletin, in commenting on this, says:
“We should be very glad to know of a cow, worthy to be called an ‘excellent milker’—duration of the flow after becoming pregnant being one of the tests—which has no escutcheon at all, or a very small one. As at present advised, we don’t believe she exists. Most old cow men would say that, if the escutcheon is as valuable an indication as the milk-veins, too much effort can hardly be made to extend knowledge concerning it.”
“Henry Tanner, professor of agriculture, Queen’s College, Birmingham, England, says, in a volume of prize essays of the Highland and Agricultural Society:
“Some attention has also been given, within a few years, to a discovery, made by Mons. Guenon, respecting ‘the escutcheon,’ as it is termed. Like many other persons, he was carried beyond the boundary of discretion in his speculations, and thus his valuable observations were for a time lost in the mist with which he enveloped them. Sufficient is already known of its value, at least, to lead us to the conclusion that it is worthy of more general knowledge.
“A very extended observation has proved that, other conditions being equal, the modification of form presented by the escutcheon will lead to an estimation, not only of the quantity of milk which the animal will produce, but also of the time during which the cow will keep up the supply of milk.