1st. Two new classes, sub-divided also into six orders, (the
Left Flanders and the Double Selvage.)
2d. Two varieties of escutcheons, having some similarity with
the others.
3d. Finally, the classification of the bull.
These three additions, unpublished until now, complete and generalize the
system of characteristic signs, by which one can prove the absolute and
relative superiority or inferiority of each individual of the race.
These new forms of escutcheons were known to me at the time of the
publication of my first issue, and which I had already announced; but
they occurred so rarely in the races which were familiar to me, that I
thought they were not worth publishing.
But, now, since I have traveled so much, not only in France, but in
foreign countries, I have convinced myself that these classes occur much
more commonly in certain races than I had thought at first. I have felt
the necessity of putting them in my method, and have given them their
proper place.
In respect to the two new varieties of escutcheons, they are like an
appendix to the classification, and characterize the product of crossing
between different classes.
To state precisely their signification and to value their corresponding
milk product, it is necessary to compare these escutcheons with the order
of the class to which they are the most analogous.
When I shall have described the different families of true cows, as well
as their division into orders, the yield or the quantity of milk, their
butyraceous qualities, and the greater or less period of its duration of
yield during gestation, I will pass to the bastard cows, which, though
perfectly similar in form and color to others, differ essentially from
them, for they lose their milk as soon as they are pregnant.
This close resemblance is a source of errors to the most practiced judges.
Thus have I wished in the description of classification, to point out
precisely the distinctive signs by the aid of which one can easily
recognize them. After the study of bastard cows, comes the chapter of
bull re-productors. I have made plain, that in the classifications
of bulls, I have reduced to three the numbers of orders of each
class, in order to bring the application of the method to the most
simple expression. The first will comprehend all the bulls, the good
re-producers; the second, the re-producers of middling quality; the
third, the bad re-producers. I mean by bad, those in which fails the
ability for the transmission of the lactiferous qualities. As one sees,
the characteristic signs with the males, as with the females, have a
significant value of the highest importance. With the bull, they portray
the re-productive qualities, and with the cows the lactiferous qualities.
The observers who will apply my system of one kind, as rigorously for
the males as for the females, will observe in the passage of one order
to the other, the same scale of proportion that this established in
the classification of the cows. Although the classification bears more
on the lactiferous or re-productive properties than on the others, it
is important to take in consideration all the other qualities that
the individuals can and ought to possess to be of an irreproachable
organization.
The cows of the first and second order of each class, in all the races,
will always give in the same country, a greater abundance of milk than
those of inferior orders. To recognize the lactiferous produce of cows,
whatever may be their class or the locality that they inhabit, it
suffices simply to know the quality of the food which makes the habitual
nourishment of the cows in the place where they are kept.
In following in his appreciation, the degree of superiority or of
inferiority of the escutcheon, one will judge close upon the daily
quantity of milk that all the cows of the same country are apt to
give, for one will know then in what proportion all the figures of the
classification should be modified. A milk cow ought to be neither too fat
nor too lean, to give her maximum of milk. All confinements in a period
of thinness is prejudicial to the habitual produce. Even when the animal
would have recovered her strength, she will not recuperate so as to
restore the quantity of her milk; that can take place only after a year,
and by means of a new calf. A great milk cow, whatever may be her aptness
for fattening, and her condition of fat at the time of calving, becomes
thin about fifteen or twenty days after calving; the time of her rut
is therefore less near than that of a poor milk cow, because her vital
forces are weaker. Witness the quantity of her yield, which is only that
of a cow of medium product.
One can compare a milch cow to a fruit tree, which gives more fruit
this year than the next. When the sap of the tree carries vigor to
the development of the fruit, the growth of the wood remains nearly
stationary. When, on the contrary, the tree gives but little fruit, the
sap turns to the profit of the wood, to give, after a repose of several
years, a greater quantity of fruit, and to continue thus by alternative
successions.
It is the same with the cow, for it is seldom that her produce keeps
the same during three consecutive years, for the reason that, when the
nourishment absorbed by her turns to the profit of the milk, the milk is
more abundant; when, on the contrary, the nourishment goes to fat, the
milk diminishes.
The variations in the milk quantity should be justly attributed to the
influence of atmospheric circumstances of the seasons, which react on
the quality of hay and fodder in augmenting or diminishing the nutritive
juices of the food.
Cows which are fed in good pastures surpass the product which I have
assigned to their class and their order, while those which are in poor
and wet pastures have necessarily inferior produce, unless the latter
have in the stable nourishing food, more abundant and more succulent than
they are able to get for themselves out of doors.
If, for example, the well-fed cows, or those grazing on rich pasture
lands, should give as much as twenty to twenty-five quarts of milk per
day; these same cows, taken and fed on poor pasture, will give only about
ten or twelve quarts.
If, on the contrary, one takes the cows raised on a poor soil, transfers
them to rich pastures, the milk produce of these same cows will be
superior to that they gave in their original lands.
My readers should well understand that in the valuations of my
classifications that I have not pretended to assign a rigorous and
absolute amount. I have been only able to give an approximate figure to
each class and to each order, adopting the medium limit of the ordinary
amount of the different breeds of various localities.
The atmosphere, the care, and the different foods of each country, all
these different things exercise upon the animal, an influence favorable
or unfavorable, according to the nature of the soil.
There are many other circumstances which should be considered, and which
would disturb the harmony of the figures of my valuation and the normal
quantity. Such are, for example, the case of sickness, accidents, &c.
That is the reason I have adopted, in determining the quantity of cows of
each order, a medium figure, such as is shown in the classification.
I will also observe, relative to those animals to which I assign
approximate weight in the course of this work, that, following the
customs of commerce, of sale, and of butchers, this weight is dead
weight, the animal being deprived of the skin, intestines, head, feet, &c.
If, contrary to custom, I had acted otherwise, and had made the
calculation for the animal on the hoof, the figures given by me would
present a great difference, which would increase according to the amount
of fat, sometimes to double the weight.
The discovery which I have made of the value of the escutcheon is
designated by the contrary direction of the hair, and which had escaped
the attention of every one, even those most interested in gaining the
knowledge of it. It is necessary also to avow the effect produced by
the change of direction of the hair is not glaring on the animal. It
is merely a difference of luster, and the gloss on the surface of the
escutcheon and the part of the skin surrounding it. The hair of the
escutcheon is finer, shorter, more furry, and more silky. Its appearance,
at the first glance, makes one think this part of the animal has been
shaved. Compared with the ordinary hair, the skin of the udder appears
to be more designed to be quicker seen on the part where appears the
escutcheon.
All animals of the bovine species, without excepting even wild animals,
are marked with an escutcheon, large, small, or medium, regular or
irregular. Their characteristic sign is transmitted with the generating
germ.
I have not thought it necessary to say much on that portion of the
escutcheon which extends on the stomach of the beast towards the navel.
This addition has been thought useless. Enough is shown of the escutcheon
when she is standing.
In order to see well the escutcheons with all the fullness which my
sketches give them, it must be supposed that the udder of each cow is
seen at its greatest plenitude of milk, such as would separate the hind
legs to the greatest extent. In this way the escutcheon is seen as if
the entire skin of the animal was placed flat, or as if the envelope of
the milk bearing apparatus formed a plain surface, on which are drawn
the elevations, the depressions, and all that is not visible to the eye,
without the aid of hands or of movement of the cow, both that which is
hidden at the further side and in the folds of the udder and of the
thighs of the animal on foot.
In order to examine and to distinguish perfectly the escutcheon, one
should place himself behind the animal and make it advance some steps, in
such manner that the movements which it makes in walking should show, one
after another, the parts which one needs to see.
One can also, in passing the nails over the space occupied by the
escutcheon and leading the hand downward from above, in a manner contrary
to the rising hair, and ruffling it, recognize without difficulty its
form and its extent.
Theoretical explanations are always abstract and diffuse in their
development. My method may at first appear difficult and complicated,
which, indeed, pretended savans have chosen to affirm. Nevertheless it is
not so, and in order to comprehend it, it is sufficient to study it. It
is with this as with everything else, to know it is necessary to study
and to practice.
The beautiful art which I am about to explain to agriculturists is most
easily acquired. Its technical dictionary is composed only of certain
words, of which the readers should, first of all, know perfectly the
precise signification.
These words are _Escutcheons, Epis or Tufts ascending_, and _Epis or
Tufts_ descending. After he knows perfectly the different forms and the
importance of these characteristic signs, he will know the whole subject
as well as I do myself.
The Epis or Tuft, as one will see, participates with the escutcheon
in the distinction of the orders—it multiplies the sub-divisions. It
seems at the same time to complicate my method and to render it less
accessible; but I have not felt myself at liberty to omit it, since it
has an incontestible and important value.
If, among certain animals, the form and extent of characteristic signs
are not exactly those of the drawings, but a sort of intermediate
between the characteristic signs of two classes, he who applies the
method should approximate them to the drawing of the classification from
which they differ the least, and from that deduce the probable value.
To render my work perfectly clear, I had to enter into the developments
very much in detail. Nevertheless, so extensive are these details that
I believe I have given neither too many nor too few, and have confined
myself simply within the limits of the possible, the indispensible and
the useful.
And now, whoever my opponents may be, I proclaim boldly and without fear,
that the escutcheon is the only incontestible characteristic sign that
can enable one to discern, by simple inspection, the aptitude for milk
production of each animal.
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.