Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure — John Shaqi
Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their CureJennings, Robert
Science
Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure
Jennings, Robert
Cattle -- Diseases
One of the four cows originally imported into this country by John P.
Cushing, Esq., of Massachusetts, gave in one year three thousand eight
hundred and sixty-four quarts, beer measure, or about nine hundred and
sixty-six gallons, at ten pounds the gallon; being an average of over
ten and a half beer quarts a day for the entire year. The first cow of
this breed, imported by the Massachusetts Society, for the Promotion of
Agriculture, in 1837, yielded sixteen pounds of butter a week for
several successive weeks, on grass feed only. It should be borne in
mind, in this connection that the climate of New England is less
favorable to the production of milk than that of England and Scotland,
and that no cow imported after arriving at maturity can be expected to
yield as much, under the same circumstances, as one bred on the spot
where the trial is made, and perfectly acclimated.
On excellent authority, the most approved shape and marks of a good
dairy cow are as follows: Head small, long, and narrow toward the
muzzle; horns small, clear, bent, and placed at considerable distance
from each other; eyes not large, but brisk and lively; neck slender and
long, tapering toward the head, with a little loose skin below;
shoulders and fore quarters light and thin; hind quarters large and
broad; back straight, and joints slack and open; carcass deep in the
rib; tail small and long, reaching to the heels; legs small and short,
with firm joints; udder square, but a little oblong, stretching forward,
thin skinned and capacious, but not low hung; teats or paps small,
pointing outward, and at a considerable distance from each other;
milk-veins capacious and prominent; skin loose, thin, and soft like a
glove; hair short, soft, and woolly; general figure, when in flesh,
handsome and well proportioned.
If this description of the Ayrshire cow be correct, it will be seen that
her head and neck are remarkably clean and fine, the latter swelling
gradually toward the shoulders, both parts being unencumbered with
superfluous flesh. The same general form extends backward, the fore
quarters being, light the shoulders thin, and the carcass swelling out
toward the hind quarters, so that when standing in front of her it has
the form of a blunted wedge. Such a structure indicates very fully
developed digestive organs, which exert a powerful influence on all the
functions of the body, and especially on the secretion of the milky
glands, accompanied with milk-veins and udder partaking of the same
character as the stomach and viscera, being large and capacious, while
the external skin and interior walls of the milk-glands are thin and
elastic, and all parts arranged in a manner especially adapted for the
production of milk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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