Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1888-05-17
farm AND GARDEN.
The Perfect Cow.

We have constantly held that there is
no such thing as perfection in the ami
NAL kingdom. An animal is simply
more or less perfect in the line of pur-
pose for which it is kept. We now
raise cattle for beef, or for milk rich in
fat and caseine, and do not expect them
to be equally superior in both beef and
milk. This is now generally conceded,
and hence the breeders aim is to bring
an animal as closely to the single stand
ard Of perfection as possible. Mr..
John Gould who is widely known for
his practicality in dairy matters, con-
tributes an article on the perfect COW to
the Rural New Yorker, from which we
excerpt the following.
That the perfect COW has been dis
covered is very doubtful, for it would
imply general purpose COW, and all
the qualities essential to the require
ments of animal husbandry cannot be
wrapped UP in one hide. The dairy aud
the beef qualities are so different,
and the results of such totally different
functions, that the perfect COW, consid-
errd as dairy animal, must always be
classed as ''type" distinct in purpose
from the beef producing stock. No
single breed has given us uniformly ex-
cellent cows of high performance, but in
all dairy breeds there is type of form
and performance, which. if recognized
and singled out and perpetuated by hered-
lty, may result in something like a per-
feet dairy COW. When we find this type,
it may be perpetuated, if in breeding we
recognize the fact that the sire must be
given equal credit not only in transmit
ting essential qualities, but in confirming
the type as well, and l do not hold to
the assumption that merit can be found
only In purity of the existing breeds.
That the grade may be good dairy COW
is established; and if we breed from
dairy types and they are based on per-
formance, the observing, painstaking far
mer may raise his own cows.
The dairy cows mission will be to pro-
duce butter and cheese, and hence she
will not be large animal as measured by
the beef standard. The giving of milk
makes the dairy COW creature of benefi-
cence, returning to her owner, in milk
and cheese and manure, with nothing
held back but actual bodily support, all
the food consumed; while the beef COW,
with habits fixed by breeding, is "a
miser," storing away as largely as posi-
bic the better elements of her food for
fat, flesh and bone forming, and
only yielding it up on the
block; SO that milk and beef qualities
must contend for mastery if bound UP
in one animal, and the result must be
disappointing. That the beef element is
antagonistic to the milking habit is a
noticeably popularity. The truly beef
COW is small and brief mixer, often
failing to give support for her calf, and
the utimatum is reached when the beef
type actually undermines the function of
motherhood, and promises the oblitera-
ton OF beefy family; while mother
hood, in its broadcast and most complete
sense, is the predominant trait OF the
dairy COW. So think milk and beef
will never be combined with favorable
results.
Whether the 'perfect COW" will be
recognized as butter COW, or an animal
for milk, think admits of no tlistinc-
hon. Milk is valuable only for the solids
It contains in fats, cheese and sugar.
and the COW that produces butter has no
power (nor can it be bred into herr to
furnish milk in which the facts largely
predominant over the cheese element, or
vice versa. No analysis covering any
considerable periods of time or Of the
milk of any dairy breed fed upon the
rations generally furnished dairy cattle
at large, have ever shown that the ratio
OF butter value by weight, was in excess
OF the normal proportion of cascine by
weight; and in the case of any herd the
normal milk will be as valuable for
cheese as for butter, the price of either
or the feeding value of the milk not be
ing considered, and the richness of milk
IS due to the absence, to greater or less
degree, of the usual eighty-eight per
cent. of water that makes the bulk of
milk.
Neither is the bulk or weight of milk
any criterion of its value, and the value
attached to the size of a COW in the
future will be regulated by the amount
of solids in her milk, !. e., the small
COW that puts as much solids in her
twenty five pounds OF milk per day, will
pc held as having superior value over a
large COW whose fifty pounds of milk
contain only an equal amount of solids.
Unless the large COW can show better
performance in actual butter and cheese
on proportional rations, the smaller COW
must win, as her smaller body calls for a
correspondingly less consumption Of food
for bodily support.