Читать книгу How to Select Cows or, The Guenon system simplified, explained, and practically applied - Willis P. Hazard - Страница 5

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Error is propagated with the rapidity of lightning; before it every obstacle disappears, and popular favor seems to welcome it. Truth, on the contrary, is received with indifference, often even with doubt, suspicion, and distrust. Indeed, how often have we not seen the author of a discovery which, having been accepted and realized ought to have advanced the public good and increased the general welfare, come into contact with the hatred, the ignorance, and the envy, and thus become the laughter of fools and the jest of the wise. To some the inventor seemed without good sense; to others an ignoramus. Too feeble to struggle against all, he died broken hearted, and left to his powerful antagonists the glory of having, perhaps for ages, buried his discovery, and to those who bring to perfection cities and fields the deprivation of a good up to that time unknown.

If more happy than those martyrs for a new idea, I should reach, at last, that which concerns me, after twelve years of incessant struggles, to cause the truth to appear to the eyes of all, I should have nothing more to desire. Nothing would remain for me, except to bless the generous hearts which shall have aided me in triumphing over routine and error; then on quitting this world, only to bequeath the worthy men who have so bravely encouraged and seconded my efforts, the task of simplifying my discovery, and rendering my method popular to cause the analytical knowledge of cattle to penetrate even into the most obscure hamlet, and while dividing thus with me the glory of having done this good, their names will be held in grateful remembrance by future generations; such has been the idea which has guided every moment of my life, all the efforts of my mind.

For nearly twelve years, since I have given my method to the public, through a first edition of my “Treatise on Milch Cows,” the savants and the practitioners have been greatly prepossessed with it. When they have seen me make a successful application before them of my system, by a single inspection of animals which I saw for the first time, they have expressed a lively surprise.

In the vegetable kingdom, skillful nurserymen have distinguished more than eighty different orders of pears of summer, of autumn, and of winter; each of these orders has its distinctive characteristics, as many for the shape and the taste of the fruit, as for the time of ripening. And when a tree-grower or an amateur is sufficiently skillful, he distinguishes marvelously all these species one from another by a single inspection, and at whatever time of year it may be. He knows equally well what exposure it is necessary to give to each of them to obtain exquisite fruits.

My first studies had been directed toward arboriculture. I have practiced with my father during many years. My principal occupation was the cutting of trees, grafts, both splits and bandages, and by studying vegetables, I had acquired the idea of and an insight into classifications.

I was better prepared thus for my work of classifying the bovine race, a work which no one had ever tried, either theoretically or practically.

My classification of the characteristic signs, embraces all the races of France and other countries, without distinction of sex or age.

Unknown, up to this day, although they have always existed, these signs have escaped all the world, even the sagacity of the most celebrated painters, as well as that of veterinary doctors of the highest reputations of all times.

The appearance of my method should mark an era, for it opposes and overturns all the prejudiced routines according to which people have practiced up to this time.

It opens a new era in an art in its infancy, in a science whose first principles even were unknown. I should then expound it with the greatest detail.

This method is of the greatest simplicity, whatever has been possible to be said of it, and whoever will become thoroughly familiar with the escutcheon of the first order of each class, will be able to judge of all.

Escutcheons are ten in number. They extend, according to their class, from the centre of the four teats to the level of the upper extremity of the vulva, and may extend in breadth from the middle of the hinder surface of one leg, to the middle of the hinder surface of the other. By their form or configuration, escutcheons characterize and distinguish the ten families which together constitute my classification. Behold, then, to what is reduced, in reality, this pretended immense complication.

A special figure, placed at the end of each class, serves to indicate mongrel animals.

Each of the classes or families is characterized by an escutcheon of fixed form, always similar to itself, while one does not get out of that class or that family, but variable in the dimensions of its surface. That dimension or that surface should be estimated by square centimeters, but that would be too complicated for the practical man; since it depends on the size of the individual, it is estimated by the limits of the escutcheon placed on the hinder part of the animal. The extreme limits are the hams, the interior surface of the legs and vulva. The surface of the escutcheon, of which the extent varies, has permitted me to divide each class or family into six orders, for each one of which I assign, in taking account of the shape, the quantity, the continuation, and the quality of the milk.

The escutcheon of the first order is the most developed; is also the best marked. The escutcheon of each of the five other orders is similar in form to that of the first order. It is, in some sort, only a proportionate reduction—a diminutive. It is the escutcheon of the first order, with the dimensions reduced or brought within less extended limits, reaching no longer the hock nor longer covering the interior of the thighs, nor yet reaching up to the vulva, remaining consequently at a distance greater or less from these boundaries.

I have added to this new edition—

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.