CHAPTER III. THE SELECTION OF MILCH COWS. We have now reviewed the prominent races of cattle found in American dairy herds, and devoted some space to an examination of the principles to be followed in the breeding of dairy stock; and this has involved, to some extent, the choice of breeds, and the selection of individual animals, with special reference, however, to transmitting and improving their milking properties. But the selection of cows for the dairy is of such importance as to demand the most careful consideration. The objects of a dairy are three-fold: the production of milk for sale, mainly confined to milk-dairies, and to smaller farms in the vicinity of large towns, where a mixed husbandry is followed; the production of butter, chiefly confined to farms at a distance from cities and large towns, which furnish a ready market for milk; and the fabrication of cheese, carried on under circumstances somewhat, similar to the manufacture of butter, and sometimes united with it as an object of pursuit, on the farm. These different objects should, therefore, be kept in view, in the selection of cows; for animals which would be most profitable for the milk-dairy might be very unprofitable in the butter-dairy--a fact of almost daily experience. The productiveness of the cow does not depend on her breed so much as upon her food and management, her temperament and health, and the activity and energy of the organs of digestion and secretion. These latter, it is true, depending upon the structure of the chest and other parts, are far better developed, and more permanently fixed, in some races than in others, and are derived more or less by descent, and capable of being transmitted. The breed, therefore, cannot be wholly disregarded, inasmuch as it is an element in forming a judgment of the merits of a milch cow.