ae bbe ren hehe ena a Soees SERS SE 3S ‘ Pate ee ee AER <= es 5 Cornell University Library OF THE r ew Work State College of Agriculture C.4.48 i 1633 ornell University Library Cattle problems explained. Thirty origina CATTLE PROBLEMS EXPLAINED. Thirty original Essays, INCLUDING Origin of the “Yield Mark”—Lung Plague and Hog Cholera—Breeding Power and Sterility—Cause of “Abortion in Cows;” AND MANY OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS RELATING TO CATTLE AND THEIR MANAGEMENT. Illustrated with 40 Diagrams. PRICE, $1.50. BATTLE CREEK, MICH. PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 1880. + Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J. W. CLARKE, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. CONTENTS. BOOK ONE. Preratory STATEMENT, IntRopUCTORY REFERENCES, CHAPTER I. History or Hanp-Mitgine anp Upprer-Growta.— Udder Expansion Results from Storage of Yield, CHAPTER II. Guenon Examinep.— Also Ais Illustrated Udder Forms, CHAPTER III. ForMATION AND Coxor oF Mitx.— The Structure and Uses of the Udder, CHAPTER IV. ORIGIN oF THE “ YiELD Mark” DiscovereD.—Milk Weight Causes the “Escutcheon” Mark, CHAPTER V, VARIATIONS IN THE Form or THE YIELD Marg.— They Result from Variations in Yield, and in Form of Breech Growth, . ; ; ' j 17 24 36 44 52 4 Contents. CHAPTER VI. Deration or Yretp is Mik Cows.—Cows dry up their Yield to continue their Breeding Power, CHAPTER VII. Tue “ Yietp Mark” TRANSMITTED BY THE Cow.— Fhe Origin of Good Milking Families, BOOK TWO. CHAPTER VIII. Serectine Minx Cows.— Handling Qualities, and Quality in Cattle Products, CHAPTER IX, Sources or TenDERNESS IN CaTTLE.— Why some Cat- tle are Tender, while others are Hardy, CHAPTER X, BREEDS OF CATTLE FOR THE WESTERN RancEs.— Hints on Characteristics and Selection of Cattle, CHAPTER XI, Resuurs oF First anD OTHER CrossEs.— Influence of Crossing on Meat Quality, and on Breeding Power, CHAPTER XII Sources oF Breepine Power anD STERILITY.— Eaer- cise w Chief Necessity in Maintaining Breeding p> fvuer, ‘ ’ ; 59 68 76 87 96 105 115 Contents. CHAPTER XIII, Ortcin or Cuaracter tn OLD Breeps or Cartie.— Natural Conditions Giving Rise to their Pecul- rarities, CHAPTER XIV. Immaturity; orn Too Earzy Farrenine AND BREEDING. —Inferior Quality and Food Value in Steers that are not Matured, . CHAPTER XV, Buk ry Carrie Freep; anp Diesstion.—ZJnfluence of Bulk in the Body and the Lungs, CHAPTER XVI. Lune Prague in Cattie, AND CHoLeRA IN Hocs,— The Conditions leading to the Origin of these Diseases, . CHAPTER XVII. Loss or Muscie in Catriz anD Hocs,—And the Loss in Food Value, and Money Value from Loss of Muscle, CHAPTER XVIII. Tuer Savine or Muscte in Fatrentne CatrLe.—L2zer- cise and Juicy Meat versus Waste and Degenera- tion of the Muscles, . ; ’ 126 138 146 164 175 6 Contents. CHAPTER XIX. Trainina, Frepine, AND Brespinc.—Or Developing Food- Value in Farm Stock, BOOK THREE. CHAPTER XX. ABORTION ExTRAORDINARY IN Cows.—ZJncrease of the Malady— Some of tts Peculiarities.—Introductory, CHAPTER XXT. ABORTION EXTRAORDINARY IN Mitx Cows.—From Ar- tery Engorgement and Embryo Starvation, ‘ CHAPTER XXTI. ENGoRGEMENT AND ARTERY RELAXATION IN PRACTICE. —Reasons of Aboriment at Various Stages of Pregnancy, CHAPTER XXTIIL CHARACTERISTICS OF ABORTION ExTRAORDINARY.—Jt Results from Relaxation of the Udder-Supply Ar- teries, CHAPTER XXIV. SumMaRY oF THE ARGUMENT ON AxBorTion.—As the Results of Embryo Starvation, from the Engorge- ment and Relaxation of the Udder-Supply Ar- teres, ‘ 182 191 197 214 221 226 Contents. CHAPTER XXYV. Farture or Asortina Cows to Breep.—Accidental Engorgement of the Uterine and Ovarian Arteries, CHAPTER XXVI. PREVENTION OF ABORTION IN Cows.—Resting Them, and Other After- Treatment, CHAPTER XXVIL Farrow Cows, AND InTERMITTED Breepine.— Weak- ened Contractility in the Udder-Supply Arteries, CHAPTER XXVIII. Farture oF Deere Minxers to Breev.—lt Results from Chronic Relaxation of the Mammary Ar- tertes, CHAPTER XXIX, ALTERNATE MILKING AND Breepinc witH Cows.— Maintaining Large Yield by Selection and In- heritance, . CHAPTER XXX, Exampces or Lance YIELD, AND How 17 1s Propucep. —Practical Suggestions on Handling, Feed, and Training, . 230 238 245 249 253 263 ERRATA. Page 56, fourteenth and eighteenth lines from the top, should read Plate V., instead of Plate IV. Page 68, third line in chapter heading, should read The Origin of Good Milking Families, instead of The Origin of Good Food Milking Families. Page 121, twelfth line from the top, should read Jonas Webb, instead of James Webb. PREFATORY STATEMENT. ABOUT twenty years since, we discovered the origin of the YIELD MarkK—escutcheon—on Milk Cows. But the ex- citement of the war and other matters incident to a farm- er’s life, such as changes of residence, and poor health, prevented any thorough consideration of the escutcheon mystery of Guenon till in 1868. In that year we ex- plained the origin of the YIELD Mark to the late Hon. W. C. Flagg, of Moro, Illinois, who suggested a revision of Guenon’s Treatise. But on looking more closely into it, we found nothing worth the labor of revision—only a fic- titious system erected upon the coincidence of yield, with the size of the YreLp Mark as its sole foundation, which seemed to us quite insufficient to build a labored system upon. Instead of revising, we wrote a dozen chapters on different phases of, the subject and its adjuncts, but finding other matters of value accumulating rapidly, we reduced the treatment of the YIELD Mark, and its relation to yield, to the two chapters specially devoted to it, adding a num- ber of diagrams. In 1868, soon after the reports of Doctors J. C. Dalton and W. H. Carmalt to the New York State Agricultural Society, on the subject of ‘Abortion in Cows,” and ‘‘the negative results of the commission’s investigation ’’ were 2 10 Prefatory Statement. published, we carefully read their report, thereby dis- covering that the commission had entirely failed to rec- ognize the material and very important fact, that with any considerable increase in a cow’s milk yield, there must be a corresponding enlargement of the 4rferies that convey blood to the milk glands. For over four years succeeding, we devoted much time and study to the various phases of the subject, the results being given in Book III. of this work, which several able physicians assure us is irrefut- able; in which conclusion we cannot but concur. We refer to the text for full explanation, with the remark that the studies and labors which this subject required occupied about four years of time, nearly all the matter having been written over and condensed three times. From a long list, we have selected about twenty other topics that seemed alike important and perplexing, giving such special study to them severally as our limited facili- ties permitted. Several of these problems have sufficient interest and practical importance to require a treatise for their full discussion and elucidation; hence, we have only been able to notice the more prominent bearings, from our own point of view, of course, of topics that a dozen short chapters are devoted to. In discugsing numerous questions of wide scope and bearing, views that conflict with current opinions and practices are advanced ; for it is not to fall in with cur- rent views that we write, but rather, it is our purpose to state views and conclusions that seem to us more con- sistent and correct. In fact, to do any good in correct- ing anomalous practices, it is necessary to point out in- consistencies and fallacies, to the end that investigation and practical skill may devise methods of correcting practices that are found to be wrong or inconsistent. This work, though in part fragmentary, is entirely orig- inal, and though our facilities for reference and consulta- Prefatory Statement. 11 tion have been very limited, we have endeavored to ad- vance only such conclusions, testing them occasionally by the best methods within our reach, as we hope will bear the ordeal of discussion, and the test of experience. Minor errors will of course be met with ; but we hope and believe the views stated will be found, after due consideration, mainly correct. Apparent repetition will be met with, the object being to give various bearings of certain facts, and emphasis to views and principles that, if they are under- stood—as on the importance of exercise for other stock, as well as horses, for instance—there is little, if any, evidence of it, in practice, except in the distinguished case of horses. We believe a change in this matter is required, and our object is to promote the due use of the locomotive organs, and the lungs of animals that are now overmuch restricted in this respect, as shown in succeeding pages. At our advanced age, faults of style are quite likely to be met with, from the fact that ill health has many times made rest, from days to weeks at a time, a necessity. But with persistent labor, we have endeavored to make the reasoning and meaning so clear that no one who takes time to think carefully* need be misled. Positive accuracy or perfection in statement or reasoning is out of the question, as if per- fection were reached in any given direction, no further progress or improvement in that field would be practicable, so stagnation would ensue, which would not advance im- provement, or progress. The husk and kernel grow together, and though it be- comes necessary to separate them, we cannot have either without producing both. The poorer in quality protects the richer in value. And we hope that if, in some parts of this work, rough bark or dry husks be met with, sound heart-wood and nutritive kernels in other parts will be *Foster’s Physiology is a good work to refer ta. 12 Prefatory Statement. found in sufficient quantity to repay the perusal of its pages. * Whatever errors we may have fallen into, we hope to live long enough to correct or outgrow, even in our even- ing of life. So we present the work to our readers as it is, with the belief that many of them will, in due time, come to be of our way of thinking. *We are indebted for friendly hints and assistance on some points toa close thinker—Dr. D. C. Hawxhurst, Battle Creek, Mich. INTRODUCTORY REFERENCES, Breeders of Thoroughbred cattle will find matter for thought in chapters XI. and XII. on Crossing, and on Breeding power and Sterility; also in chapter VII. on Trans- mission by the cow; and in chapter IX. on Tenderness; and in several other chapters in which the sources of ime provement in vigor.and fertility are discussed. They will also find matter for thought in considering the sources of food value—chapters XXVII. and XX VIII.—in store cattle before they are fattened, the means of saving such value being made clear. Feeders of select grade cattle, and of show animals will find the explanation of the success of Mr. Gillette, the eminent feeder and successful prize- winner, of Logan Co., Ill., a topic of intimate interest— see chapters XVII. and XVIII.—particularly to those who have the noble ambition of producing the best quality of meat food by consistent and effective management. Breed- ers embarking in business on the western grazing grounds* will find practical suggestions on the surest basis of success in breeding, and on the sources of power of endurance, as the needed safeguard against loss from exposure, in chap- ters IX. and X., on Breeds of cattle for Western ranges, and *Just as we are going to press we read with gratification that Lord Dun- more is preparing to breed hardy Scotch cattle on an extensive ranch in Montana, which is consistent with the principles advocated in chapters X. and XIII. of this work. 14 Introductory References. on sources of Tenderness, and in other chapters. Also in chapter XIII., on the origin of character in 0/7 breeds of British cattle. Farmers who feed common steers will ascertain by refer- ence to chapter XNVII., on loss of muscle and food value, why good steers, in a half-fat condition, fail in many cases to gain much in weight for weeks or months, when tied up and well fed. A source of great loss in food value, from the common practice of tying up to feed, is also explained in chapter XVIII. ‘The subject of Crossing, chapter XI., presents facts that we believe may cause some surprise, par- ticularly to those who resort to light-muscled sorts or fam- ilies of cattle, with the expectation of improving value in the grades. Epicures will find the sources of gustatory en- joyment, or prime quality in meat, discussed, and in some degree explained, in chapter XVIII., on exercising cattle while fattening. Dealers in cattle, and those in search of good cows, will find points of practical interest, clearly stated in chapter VIII., on Selecting cows, and Handling qualities, and in parts of other essays. Those who are firm in the belief that Guenon’s sys/cm is valuable, will find the origin of the various marks described by him explained in detail, with a full and fair review of the subject in chapter II., on Guenon examined. While many other matters are treated, the consumers of meat may find hints and facts in chapters VIII. and XVIII., on feeding to maintain food value, and on loss of muscle and food value, and in the latter part of chapter VHI., on Handling qual- ities, of keen interest to them, some causes of variation in quality in different parts of the same animal, being stated. Cheese factory patrons and private dairymen will find in the several chapters of Book LI., topics of profound in- terest, discussed in a clear manner, by demonstrative rea- soning, aided by illustrations; and in chapter XXX, on Introductory References. 15 Good Cows and their Training, in which the development of large yielding capacity is explained. The consequence of too much haste to grow rich, and of treating certain cows as machines, are not forgotten; it being also shown that Abortion, of the recent variety, is zof epidemic, as the malady is clearly traceable to the mechanical influence of udder supply, artery engorgement, which itself is the result of over-rapid increase of artery blood, from too large sup- plies, or too rapid increase of feed. Dairymen or others, who may desire to make the breed- ing of Milk cows a special pursuit, will find matter for thought in chapter VIII., on Transmission by the cow, and other suggestions with special reference to this subject, in chapter XXIX., on Alternate milking and breeding, and also in the several chapters of Book III. Hog breeders and feeders, and those who keep cows for milk, in the vicinity of large cities, and elsewhere, may ascertain, in chapter XVI., how the breeding grounds of Bacteria are formed by preventing necessary exercise ; and in chapter XVII., how millions’ worth of food value are an- nually lost, in wasting the muscle-flesh and nutritive value of vast numbers of hogs and fattening cattle ; also how to prevent Lung plague, and the inroads of Bacteria termo, souis, or other Scavenger organisms, or fungoid growths, in the chapters specially treating on these subjects. Own- ers of cows will find why many of the best milkers losc their Breeding power, either temporarily or permanently, by reading chapters XXVII. and XXVIII., and other parts of Book III., on farrow cows and deep milkers, The development of several leading characteristics in well known Breeds of cattle is traced to its natural origin in chapter. XIII., on old Breeds of cattle, while changes in the growth of Short-horn cattle, as observed in California, are several times alluded to, to show the influence of new external conditions, of soil, feed, and climate. 16 Introductory References. A number of topics that seemed to require it, are inci- dentally discussed* in different parts of the work; a spe- cial chapter being devoted to the results of fattening cattle at mature and immature ages—chapter XIV.— and to the necessity of bulk, in Air for breathing, and in feed for mechanical influence —see chapter XV.—as well as ali- ment. While the paramount influence of activity in de- veloping muscle, power, and food value is shown by con- trast and comparison, in chapter XIV., Book IT., on Train- ing, feeding and breeding, the subjects discussed being all named in the general Index of the work. *The loss from Abortion in cows was estimated at $4,800 000, years ago, in nine dairy counties in New York. In the other dairy States, together, the loss from Abortion is probably as great. Butcall the total loss from Abortion in cows $5,000,000 a year, with $3,000,000 a year loss in muscle and food value, and $2,000,000 a year more from loss of hogs by cholera, these items make $10,000,000 yearly loss, most of which can be avoided by preventive manage ment, the nature of which is suggested in this work. PLATE IT. Il. PLATE CATTLE PROBLEMS EXPLAINED. CHAPTER I, History oF HAND-MILKING AND UpprEr-GRowTH. Udder Expansion Results from Storage of Yield. In considering the large udders of Dairy cows at the present day, in comparison with the small bags of cows that are not hand-milked, but used only in connection with breeding, as a temporary reservoir for holding a few pints of milk for frequent suckling of the calf during its teething, we see a great contrast in size between the latter, and the large bags of good Dairy cows. The difference in size between hand-milked udders and udders that are not hand-milked is extensive—ranging from two to four or five times the small natural size—as shown in Plates I. and II. In Figs. 1 to 4, Plate I., the capacity of the udder is sup- posed to be doubled, according to size of udder shown, in the successive posterior views and sections, so that udder, Fig. 4, holds four times as much milk, when full, as the small bag, Fig. 1. And there are still larger sizes and differences between the small udders of cows that are not hand-milked and those that are kept specially to yield milk at the pail. It is evident, then, that the great enlargement of the bag—the udders that have increased in size and capacity, in most instances since hand-milking began—is an effect, 18 Cattle Problems. or incident, of the now very general practice of hand- milking itself. And, as hand-milked cows necessarily store and carry all the milk they make between successive milking-times, in their bags, it results that the udder be- comes a reservoir or store-tank, in degree according to the average twelve hour or semi-daily yield of each dairy or domestic cow. So the extent of storage increases with the increase of milk formed by the udder glands; and the sizc, or storage capacity, of the bag is thus enlarged by enforced storage, the enforcement consisting in practically ‘‘stank- ing’? the udder, or not allowing the milk to be drawn, either by hand of maid or man in the artificial way, nor in the natural way by the calf, at less than an average of twelve hour intervals. There can be no doubt that ‘ stanking’’ the udder, and making it a semi-daily store sack has greatly enlarged the bag of the cow; but it will not do to confound milk ‘ for- mation’’—from the artery blood—with the storing of it in the udder, affer it is formed by cell action in the milk glands, for the production of milk depends upon the blood supply, and its natural basis, digestive power; which isa vital process; while storing milk is merely a mechanical process, or rather allowing a quantity of milk to accumu- late in the udder, and keeping it there, for convenience, till the usual milking time; the quality of the milk being some- times injured by retaining it in the udder too long. An effect, in numbers of instances, of stanking the ud- der too long, and increasing its dimensions and storage capacity in that way, is a liability to overstrain the skin of the bag, and so repeatedly, till relaxation, or loss of contractibility, results; which some mistakenly approve, because it makes the skin thin and flexible, while it is really a permanent injury to the cow, in destroying con- tractibility in the part ‘The origin of storing, or stanking the udder, dates back Hand. milking and Udder-growth. 19 to the first use of milk, in considerable quantities, by man ; and this probably transpired in different localities and countries—as also happens in the use of oxen for labor— that led to familiarity with cow kine; and so milking cows in time became customary. It is also probable that sheep* and goats were hand-milked at an earlier period than cows, and that the use of the milk from the smaller, may have suggested its use from these larger animals. A thing so hidden by the lapse of time as the origin of hand- milking can never be accurately traced back to its begin- nings. But it is certain that the hands of men or women became dextrous by practice, and that when it was seen that cows gave greater yields of milk, it naturally came to pass that the larger animals usually superseded the smaller in yielding tribute to satisfy the human appetite, so per- fecting the art of its procurement. Accidental stanking of the udder, as when the fatted calf was killed, may have suggested the relieving of cows’ udders from humane motives. We can only conjecture as to motives or dates in this matter; but it is probable that tasting followed the drawing of milk, and—as of the origin of roasting suckling pigs, from tasting one that was acci- dentally scorched to crackling—milking, and the use of milk extended so far, and the practice spread so widely, and in so many countries, that there is not now the remot- est probability of hand-milking becoming one of the lost arts. In fact, the very largely increased use of milk prod- ucts, during the last twenty years, has led to an immense increase in dairying, and in the art of milking by hand; and if at first this appear trite or unimportant, the reverse will appear as we proceed ; for: *Since writing the above we find that sheep are now hand-milked on a large scale at Rochefort, France, where the blue-tinged Rochefort cheese is made. In the manufacture of this sheep-milk cheese, 300 women, besides numbers of men, are employed, the curing of the cheese occupying thirteen establish- ments in thirteen different caves, all containing damp air, the caves containing springs of water, which keep the air moist. 20) Cattle Problems. Storing milk in the udder—making that organ a reser- voir to retain a twelve-hour accumulation twice a day— though incidental, is in fact a practical necessity, without which dairying, or even the use or sale of milk, on an extended scale, would not be practicable, as milking at intervals of one or two hours, or as frequently as calves empty udders by suckling, would involve too much labor and cost to admit of profit from the sale of milk, or dairy products. It is clear, then, that zzfreguent milking, and stanking or storing a twelve-hour yield in the udder at each time of its recurrence, is practically the basis of commer- cial dairying. Though there is no increase of the actual daily yield— increase of milk depending upon increase of food digested, not upon accumulation of the product in the udder from stanking ; nevertheless this practice has led to the very large increase in the size of the udder in dairy cows wher- ever it prevails, the enlargement of the bag being greatest and most conspicuous where improved dairying, and par- ticularly cheese-factory dairying, is most extensively prac- ticcd. As a consequence of profit, greater care and more food has led to larger yield, and further increase of profit ; and this serial process has been so widely and frequently repeated, that the small natural udder of two or three pints only has been gradually and successively enlarged by the expansive pressure of an increased quantity of milk in the glands, so that the small udders of multitudes of dairy cows have, by increase of milk yield, and its expansive force, been enlarged from the small sizes, 1 and 2, to the large sizes, 4 and 5, as shown in Plate II., and in the section at the left. This increase in udder size is of course mechanical and artificial, being due to the expansive force extending from the central part towards the inner surface of the bag, which being formed of elastic muscles, gives way, and spreads out Hand-milking and Udder-growth. 21 from the pressure of the milk. So the udder increases in size with the gradual or rapid increase of milk-yield, and its corresponding increase of expansive force, from, and as the direct consequence of, accumulating the semi-daily milk yield in the bag. This is so obvious that it would not have required remark, except to obviate misapprehen- sion of the facts, which has been found more frequent than seemed probable. But there is another force a force that pervades the entire solar system—which of course includes both the cow and her udder, which has great influence in the colarge- ment of this milk reservoir; namely:— The force of Gravitation or the weight of the milk. The milk weight increases, of course, correspondingly with its bulk, or measure, and the pressure or strain of this weight on the bottom of the inner surface of the bag is increased directly in the proportion that yield of milk increases; and this weight force continues as long, and in the same pro- portion, as yield and its pressure are continued in the udder. The downward pressure and tension due to the presence of milk in the udder, and the influence of this tension and pressure by its weight are as constant, and evi- dent, and certain as the presence of the milk itself, after it has been formed in the glands. The regularly repeated downward tension on the bottom of the udder sack, is constantly tending to deepen the bag according to the amount and weight of milk; the down- ward pressure and its resulting tension on the skin that forms the bag, being increased correspondingly with the increase of yield. To the weight of milk, primarily, must be added the weight of the glands in which the milk is formed. The glands, with the lobes or quarters which inclose them, may weigh from a third to half as much as the weight of the milk itself. The gland weight is variable, but is in- cluded in, and makes up a large percentage of the down- 22 Cattle Problems. ward pressure in the udder sack, being coequally constant with the tension of the milk-weight; the size, and weight pressure of the milk glands increasing with the quantity and weight-strain of yield, at all times. Thus, while the udders of milk cows that are making an increasing yield are being extended forward by expansive or centrifugal force, gravitation, or weight of milk, combined with gland weight, is as constantly increasing the depth or downward extension of the bag. See Plate III., Figs. 3 and 5. The relaxation of the udder sack becomes so conspicu- ous in large milkers, in some instances, as to make it evi- dent that the combined influence of expansion and weight tension together have overborne the natural contractive force of the udder skin, thus permanently enlarging the bag by destroying, or, at least effectually suspending, its natural and necessary contractibility. This result is clearly shown in the uncontracting bags of cows that are dried only with great difficulty, and breed but seldom or fail to breed at all. The skin or sack of the udder is, of course, thinned down, as yield and size of bag increase, and this, when carried to excess or effected too rapidly, is doubtless the chief cause of loss of contractile power in the udder skin. Increase of feed being the cause of increased yield, such feed as adds to the bulk of blood increases yield and the size of the udder together. Thus succulent feed, like grass and roots, tends to enlarge the yieldand the bag, and in this will be found a reason for the largest milk-producing cows being generally found in the best natural grass local- ities, inbothdry and humid climates. Thus the best grass countries in America do, or surely will with equal care and training, produce the largest or best yielding cows as a rule. The best natural grass districts of this country are in fact naturally our best dairy localities, and in these, according- Hand-milking and Udder-growth. 23 ly, the largest yielding cows of permanent capacity will in a few years be found in the largest numbers. The same rule applies to Europe, where the best dairy cows, at present known—by which are meant the largest producers of milk—are found in the humid climates of the coast country, both in west Scotland, and from Gascony in the south of France, along the low coast countries ot north France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and portions of Norway, and in humid localities farther inland. Grass is the natural food of the cow family, and where they con- sume the largest bulk of this succulent feed, there they will yield the most milk, and form the largest udders, with but few exceptions. Humidity in the atmosphere adds much to the succu- lence of grass and permanency of pasturage, producing the largest milk-yield. The size of cows’ udders, from the in- crease of yield, and its expansive force and weight-strain or gravitation, depend to a great extent on the abundance and succulency of their food ; which again depends, at least in the growing season, on humidity of climate. Soiling and wetting feed, make but few exceptions to this general fact, on account of the attendant labor. The cow is not by all believed the machine she is fre- quently alleged to be; but a living organism, with the power of changing food into blood, and organizing blood into milk, flesh, bone, and vital, living growth or tissue, according to exercise, breathing, and muscular power, upon which digestive power as the basis of milk yield, necessarily depends. When Newton saw an apple fall he found—that the apple fell downward in consequence of its weight-force or gravity; and it is no less true that, while expansive force enlarges the udder at its sides and forward, gravitation or the weight-force of yield also increases its depth and interior capacity, CHAPTER II. GUENON EXAMINED. Also his Ilustrated Udder Forms, and other growths. For the information of readers who may not have read Guenon’s Treatise on the escu¢cheon—the heraldic name he gave to the Yietp Mark, by which latter name it is uni- formly designated in this work—we may briefly state that the writer of that essay, Francis Guenon, of Libourne, France, was the first writer, so far as we are informed, who published a description of the YrELD Mark, by him called Escutcheon, by which is meant the upturned plate, or fig- ure of reversed hair on the upper back udder, or twist, of nearly all cows that yield much milk. This mark, on good milk cows, is clearly visible, and may be seen plainly by any person. It is probable that many cow-keepers have noticed it, who have not read Guenon’s Essay, nor any other description of this mark of yield. Guenon was very enthusiastic and persevering in examining cows. Between 1822 and 1828, he created 7 his own mind, ‘‘a system,”’ or classification of the YieLp Marks according to their size and form, on the twists of different cows.* He says, “A system was to be created, and I created it.’’ In this, Gue- non, like others that are more enthusiastic than reflective, took an erroneous course. There is nothing wrong in en- thusiasm itself; on the contrary, it is an excellent stimu- lant. But Guenon’s mistake consisted in endeavoring to * We haye éwo copies of Guenon’s Essay, one published by Thomas McEl- rath, N. Y., in 1863; the other by Orange Judd & Co., N. Y., 1867, So it ap- pears the work was long ago translated, and pretty widely read in this coun- try, causing much discussion, Guenon Hxramined. 25 establish a system without any other basis than the cozmecz- dence between yield and the YieLD Mark. In his second chapter, Guenon says: ‘I divide cows in- to eight classes or families, and these classes each into eight orders. In each class I distinguish three different sizes, the high, the low, and the medium. This classification embraces all kinds of cows known to me.’’ This is the substance of his classification. Heattempts to explain and illustrate this illusive system by cuts of the YIELD Mark in the various classes and orders of cows he has created, as- cribing important influences to accidental marks that have not the remotest connection with milk yield. The number of classes and orders together is sixty-four. The eight classes are based on mere difference in oudline forms of the YiELD Marks, while each of the eight orders, in each class—sixty-four orders in all—is based on adiffer- ent sizes and forms of YIELD Mark, commencing with the largest size and numbering down to the smallest in each class ; eight orders each in eight classes, makes sixty- four, multiplied by eight classes, gives two hundred and seventy-two divisions in Guenon’s system. Call his classes sixty-four in number, and cutting off one-half of these— composed of cows yielding too little milk to pay for milk- ing—and we have thirty-two classes or orders of marks and cows. Now as every one of these orders or classes blends or laps more or less, leaving no clear line of demarkation or distinction between them, what real ground is there for classification according to difference in size or form? Moreover, the same outline form of YIELD Marx is not in- herited or reproduced in azy case, as the influence of the male modifies the form of breech growth in the heifer calves, while the size of cows does not control the size of the mark, the size of the Yir-p Mark being according to weight of yield, which probably averages more in propor- 3 26 Cattle Problems. tion in cows of medium size than in large cows, in a ma- jority of instances. The capacity or size of the udder as a containing organ arises from storing the yield of milk. The wezght of the milk yield presses down in the bottom of the udder, re- versing the direction of the hair on the Yietp Marx by the force of weight strain, or gravitation, as demonstrated in the chapter on the origin of the YreLp Marx. Hence there is no ground whatever for classification, unless it can be founded on difference in weégAt, and the strain due to weight, in the udder. The total size of the YIELD Mark varies with the weight and weight strain of yield, in cows of azysize. There are exceptions to this rule, but the rule holds good in ninety per cent of all the best milk cows that we have met with in twenty years, which have been many thousands, in dif- ferent States. As to the variation in form of the YirELD Mark, there is variation in the form of every human hand and arm, from the variation in size, and arrangement of the underlying muscles, etc. There is also variation in the form and ex- pression of the faces of cows, every one differing in some particular or degree from all others, so that every face con- stitutes a separate class, on the basis of slight difference in form. The outline breech figure of every cow varies from that of others as to width, hight, curvature, etc., which modifies the form of the thighs, and the surface of the breech growth, while the form of the /lesh surface as to undulation under the skin varies, from difference in fullness of muscles, in every heifer and cow as naturally and as cer- tainly as the forms of their faces. No two cows are pre- cisely alike, though all have a general resemblance to one another. Hence a thousand cows will every one of them vary more or less in the flesh form which molds the skin, or surface covering of the twist, causing variation in the Guenon Examined. 27 outline form of the YieLp Mark in different degrees ac- cording to the elevation or depression of the muscles over which its borders extend. So every cow makes a class, on the basis of slight variation in form, while all the cows in a State comprised but one class, on the basis of general re- semblance. The increase in the size of the YreLp Mark, and in that of the udder, is shown in Plates I. and II., the loosely at- tached skin of the twist on which the YirLD Mark extends being shown in the sections of the twist Figs. 5 and 6, Plate I, A section of the folds of the YreLp Mark, caused by weight strain, is seen in Fig. 5, same Plate. The sizes of the four udders above are successively doubled, showing the extension of the Yrerp Mark higher and wider, and the extension of the udder lower and wider, according to increase of milk and its weight strain, the principle being more clearly illustrated in Plate III., Figs. 1, 2, and 4, which are designed to illustrate the influence of Gravitation in the udder and Yietp Mark, vof the anatomy of the parts. When Guenon failed to think of gravitation, he missed the mark, and gave—no demonstration as to his classifica- tion. We have shown that it has no natural foundation, and therefore no foundation at all, in the posterior growth of cows, the YIELD Mark itself standing securely and nat- urally as an Index of yield, and needing no other or fur- ther classification than its extension in size according to increase in yield; the increased strain, and its self-evident marks on the skin of the twist, arising from increased weight in the bottom of the udder, being as clear and cer- tain as the influence of weight in a sack, or on a scale, or as the force of gravity in any other instance or situation. But, while Guenon’s classification or system building failed for want of foundation, or rather because it wasa mere illusion of his fancy, he did two things of undeni- able importance, publishing a description of the YIELD 28 Cattle Problems. Mark, thus calling the attention of others to the subject, and in pointing out the co/netdence of yicld, in nearly all good cows, with the size of the Yrerp Mark. Having described the process by which it is formed, and shown the nature of force that establishes the YIELD Mark, demonstrating its relation to yield, as an effect thereof, in special chapters on that subject, we pass on to consider a few of the various forms of YIELD Mark shown in Guenon’s illustrations, for the convenience of readers who have read Guenon’s treatise, who may find the subject, in its various bearings, further explained in Chap. V., on variations in form of YIELD Mark, and illustrated in YieLp Marks and other figures of this work. In referring to Guenon’s illustrations we prefer to confine our remarks to the second best cows or orders in the classes of his cuts. We include two new classes shown in a chart * in which the new classes of YreLD Marks are introduced, one of which, the /e/# flanders, or class II., we shall now briefly consider, together with class 6, in Guenon’s work marked VIII. in the Pennsylvania chart. The peculiar fact about these two classes is, that in every instance in which the Yrerp Marx is larger on one side than on the other, the larger part is on the /cf side of the twist ; and in every instance in which it curves or diver- ges from a perpendicular direction, the divergence, bend, or curving is on the /ef/f side of the twist, and when the mark of weight-strain extends higher on one side than on the other, its extension is on the / 228 a7 Se. a =o aan fea ais aoe @ sD. 3 tzs | 28 Zot | 4° | B22 |] Sen | ales 2a Sod 5 ~S2 Ses eh s aS 2 gas 2 S098 | ote | eSe | OF | wee 1 Sy | See | Sees Bog Boer | age | hls | Hig | eed | Sel |e Lee Ha 5 20 £5 of aS a eae mos! 48 33 | one 24 | 36 | we) | i 145 60 43 12 36 45 6) 26 | e | a 14 i2 61 12 49 G1 i2 ; 49 id 84 2 12 60 72 x} | GD A) Ss 96 SL 12 69 81 96 69 The process of artery relaxation is explained early in this chapter. We now desire to show certain extreme rates and degrees of the udder-supply artery engorgement, which leads to abortion in many instances. The expansion of milk-glands and udders of cows by and according to every increase in yicld, is apparent to any observer. And when the yield of cows is increased by Abortion in Cows. 207 from 20 to Loo or 120 per cent in a few weeks or months, as happens in various cows in cheese-factory and milk herds, in various localities, the size of the udder is evi- dently increased to a corresponding extent, the milk-glands being similarly enlarged. The artery blood from which milk is formed being con- veyed to the milk-glands of the udder by the udder-supply arteries, the tubular size of these arteries is increased to the same extent or percentage that the size of the udder and extent of yield are increased. So that when the yield of cows is increased as much as from 25 to roo per cent, as occurs in many cases in cheese-dairy districts—the in- crease probably reaching as high as 120 to r4o per cent in some extreme and exceptional cases—the increase of dlood in the arteries supplying the udder is at the same great rate; and the tubular size of the udder-supply arteries is thus increased by blood engorgement to the extent of from 25 to Ioo per cent, within a single grass season of eight or ten weeks, in numbers of cows. So the mammary arte- ries of some cows are expanded to 120 or more per cent in excess of their previous size within fourteen months, or during the abundance of succulent grass growth, in only two summers, in numbers of instances, when the cows ob- tain a great and rapid increase of feed. The danger of relaxation in the udder-supply arteries, and of abortion in dairy cows, is according to the rate or rapidity at which the artery walls are thinned down,* which, as its consequence, is according to rapidity of in- crease in feed, and blood made from it, in a given length of time. For instance, when a cow’s yield is increased 50° per cent in only three months, the danger of relaxing the artery walls by the pressure of engorgement is more than three times as great as when an equal increase is made *A diagram showing certain degrees of artery expansion is given at tho end of this chapter. 208 Caitle Problems. in nine months; while in cases of doubling the yield in eight or ten weeks, as is well known to be done in some cases, the danger of relaxing the udder-supply arteries is increased by hundreds per cent over what it would be if sixteen to twenty months were occupied in doubling the yield. ‘The reason of the greater danger from over-rafid thin- ning of the artery walls, is the reduced and too short length of time for repair, as the rate of renewal by repair in the artery walls is a gradual process, which cannot be hastened, like increase of milk yield. The more rapid the increase of yield, the greater the danger of engorge- ment and relaxation, and the longer the period required for artery rest, and renewal of the relaxed and weakened walls or tissues. But the time for repair of the relaxed artery walls, by assimilation, is actually reduced and shortened according to the degree of rapidity at which yield becomes excessive, the artery walls being excessively thinned by increased engorgement, and correspondingly relaxed. Hence the danger and liability to relaxation and the tendency to abortion are increased according to the degree of rapidity at which feed, and artery blood, and yield, are increased. The yield of the cows of Holland was s/ow/y increased, their great @apacity being only gradually developed and established, as any one knowing the necessarily scant resources of the early Netherland settlers, who developed the capacity of Netherland cows—and the careful habits of the German people, must admit. The ‘‘new,’”’ up a majority of the cows in nearly all new chcese-factory districts, though yielding only moderately, are, by far, more liable to abort from artery relaxation than cows that are raised on dairy farms, and have been subject to full feeding from the first. The dairy farm cows are usually or “stranger,’? cow class, which makes Abortion in Cows. 209 fed liberally from their calf-hood up, and if put upon the scant feed that many cows on grain farms receive, such dairy cows would certainly shrink their yield, or flesh, probably both. On the contrary, the ‘‘ new cows’’ from the mixed farming country, outside the dairy districts, are subject to very great changes. The quantity of feed the stranger cows receive on coming into dairy herds, par- ticularly into cheese-dairy herds, is a very great increase over the quantity of feed they are previously accustomed to. Besides which, the new feed of those new stranger cows is much of it richer in quality, consisting of corn- meal, shorts, bran, etc.—than such as they have previously received. The consequence is, the new cows eat with great avidity, making a rapid increase in blood, and in yield, as the fact that many of these new cows double their yield in fourteen months* clearly shows. Some of this new cow class are believed to double their yield in eight to twelve weeks, though as a class they are of large milkers. But large yield is not here the question. When cows of only small or moderate yield, that have been previously only scantily fed, double their yield in only a few weeks, or months, as many of the stranger cow class are known to do, their udder-supply arteries are meanwhile en- gorged, and the artery walls thinned down with as much rapidity as their yield is increased. And the udder-sup- ply arteries’ walls in many of them are relaxed in degrees varying in different cows, according to the extent of en- gorgement from over-rapid increase of feed, mammary blood, and yield in excess of their previous quantity of feed, mammary blood, and yield. It is the excess of in- crease above their previous yield, whether the latter be small or moderate, which engorges their udder-supply ar- teries, and the danger of their engorgement increases with * Sec Table. 210 Cattle Problems. its rapidity, because the circulation in the walls of the re- laxed arteries cannot thicken the artery walls or restore their contractile powers as much in ten months, as they are thinned and weakened in only that number of days, when a large increase in yield is very rapidly made. Hence the greater liability of ‘‘new’’ or strange cows—the feed- ing being as strange to them as they are to the situation— to udder-supply artery engorgement, and to abortion, which results from relaxation of the artery walls, and the loss of their contractile power. Accordingly, it is no matter for surprise to find that over 60 per centf of the Aborting cows in the New York dairy counties are re- moved from one farm to another; in other words, they are brought into dairy herds from non-dairy farms and small herds. The large and rapid increase in yield by these new cows leads to great and rapid engorgement of their udder-supply arteries; thinning down the artery walls and relaxing them in many cows, and thus leading to embryo starvation and resulting abortments. Heifers that abort are included in the new or stranger cow class, because from not being milked, nor their udders emptied, they are even more liable to udder-supply artery engorgement and relaxation, than cows that are regularly milked, and have their milk-glands relieved of disten- tion. The only safe rate of increasing yield, is a very gradual rate say 12 per cent average increase yearly ; this increases yield 60 per cent by the eighth year of age, while it is probably quite safe to say that the rate of increase in Neth- erland or Dutch cows has not averaged 1 per cent in- crease yearly, for the past sixty years. It is the very rapid increase in feed and artery-blood, above their previous quantity of feed and blood, resulting +See Dr. W. IL Carmalt’s Report to New York State Agricultural Society, 69, Abortion in Cows. 211 from the rash haste in establishing large yield by great in- crease of feed, that leads to abortion in many cows ; chief- ly in the new or “‘ stranger’’ class. To these cows, much and rich feed is a great novelty, and causes great temp- tation. Their over-consumption of feed leads to an over- rapid increase in their udder-supply of blood, which of course engorges their udder-supply arteries; the weakest muscled and least vigorous cows being most liable to the artery relaxation, resulting from such excessive engorge- ment in the arteries that supply the udder, which occurs from such rapid rates of increase in food and blood, as are over-rapidly produced during large and excessive degrees of increase in yield, beyond the previous quantity of milk produced. We here add a diagram, showing various degrees of in- crease in diameter, or artery-size by engorgement in ex- tents that may lead to abortion in cows under various dif- ferent conditions, as explained in the references. In Plate VI., Fig. 1, shows an increase of 70 per cent in artery size made in two months, four months, or six months, as happens in each period in cows, in dairy herds. The diverging dotted lines show the much great- er rapidity at which artery-size and blood are increased when yield is increased 70 per cent in two months, com- pared to 70 per cent in four months, and in four months, compared with the six months rate of 7o per cent increase. The more rapid the rate of engorgement, the more rapid the process of expansive relaxation. In many cows, the udder-supply arteries are already expanded as much as they will bear without becoming relaxed. In such cases, the four, and six months rates of increase are likely to relax, by over-straining the udder-supply artery walls. The thinning of the udder-supply artery walls, that re- sults from greater engorgement, either in cows or heifers, is shown, though imperfectly, in Fig. 2, where it appears 919 Cattle Problems. that the walls are thinned down twice as rapidly, and as much, when the blood increases to the same extent in four months, compared with the six months rate of increase and thinning ; and three times as rapidly when thinned as much in two months, as happens in some cases, as in six months in other cases or cows. See small Figs. 3, 2, 1, lower side diagram Fig. 2. In Fig. 3,* read five years instead of five months, as the safe rate of increase (see table), or 12 per cent yearly; which doubles yield by the eighth year. This rate of in- crease in blood, does not thin down the artery walls, (see Fig. 3,) such rate of increase being safe, because gradual and slow, but still much more rapid than in most of the best cows in Europe. In Fig. 4, a. a@., the gradual thickening of the artery walls, according to increased artery-size and augmented blood pressure, is shown; such increase supplying increased power to bear pressure. The gradual thickening of the artery walls is an important consideration, for of course greater thickness here is required to bear the increased expansive pressure arising from, and corresponding to, the increase in quantity and bulk of blood conveyed in and distending the udder-supply arteries, according to any considerable increase in yield, as these arteries—like most other elastic structures—are limited in their power to bear over-strain. Heifers may rapidly increase their feed and blood, and artery-size, as shown at ~. 7, Fig. 5, which may relax their arteries, and cause them to abort. And we are informed by a close observer,} that they do abort in as large num- bers of cases as new cows, with which the aborting heifers are usually bought, and brought into special dairy herds previous to their abortments. * The side lines in the Figs, 8 and 4 should widen a litle. + Prof, L. B. Arnold. PLATE VI, Abortion in Cows. 213 Over 60 per cent of dairy district abortions occur in the stranger class of cows, or newly brought-in cows of mod- erate yield, in which the yield, of any previous extent, is much more rafid/y increased than in cows raised by dairy- men; see text. The rapid rate of engorgement, and the thinning of the artery-walls, in many new cows, is shown at 7. 7., Fig. 6; the relaxed condition of the artery-walls, of course, continuing from continued engorgement, as shown by the dotted lines in the same Fig. Home-raised cows are sometimes tempted to eat more feed than is usual, by doing which they increase their blood, and udder-supply artery-size, in correspondence to the increase in yield, as shown at 7. 7., Fig. 7—which may be 5 to 10 per cent— and this may lead to artery relaxation and abortion in some of them. Cows are, of course, more liable to artery relaxation, and less likely to recover lost contractile power in their arteries, after mature age and growth, than when they are young and more vigorous. CHAPTER XXII, ENGORGEMENT AND ARTERY RELAXATION IN PRACTICE. Reasons of Abortnent at Various Stages of Pregnancy. The fact is well known that a very large majority of milk cows are fed too sparingly rather than too much; but are mot over-fed ; nor do they have their feed rapidly in- creased at any time. Accordingly a very large majority of dairy cows are exempt from the abortion trouble. The dairy cows of Ohio are not many of them over-fed, as their excess of yield over that of the ordinary cows of the State is only 35 per cent, or only half as great as the ex- cess of yield by dairy cows in the New York dairy dis- tricts. So, from their comparatively small excess of yield, the dairy cows of Ohio are almost entirely exempt from udder-supply artery engorgement in any relaxing degrees. Consequently, abortion is rarely known or heard of in Ohio. In the coast-country cows of Holland, Holstein, and other parts of Western Europe, abortions are very rare.* Yet the very large yiell of many of these coast-country cows is a constant source of admiration to American dairy- men. Why are the udder-supply arteries of Dutch and Hol- stein cows exempt from engorgement, and the cows from abortion, when their yield, and particularly the quantity of blood, and the size of their udder-supply arteries is so much larger than in the moderate-yielding cows of the *$o Prof, Geo, IL Cook, of the New Jersey Agricultural College, informed us after his trip to that country to purchase cows some years azo, Artery Relaxation in Practice. 215 New York and other dairy localities, where the quantity of the blood supplying the udders of aborting cows is much less? The answer is ready: The coast-country cows of Holland, Holstein, etc., have been trained to hand-milk- ing for probably two centuries; but if trained for only 100 years to the pail, supposing them to have begun with a two-guart yield, and to have increased their yield only ove pint yearly; at this small rate of increase their yield by this time would have been §0 quarts, or over ¢welve gallons per cow! But here it is evident that the actual general yearly in- crease in the yield of the dairy cows of Western Europe can zof have been as much through a long period as half a pint yearly per cow! This fact, together with the careful habits and scant resources of the early trainers of these large-yielding cows, indicates clearly enough that the yield of these Netherland cows has been only very slowly in- creased from the small yield of the ancient coast-country cows, their udder-supply arteries having been only very slowly expanded in size and zzcreased in their wall sub- stance; but wof at any time engorged by extreme and over- rapid increase in feed, that certainly precedes large and rapid increase in yield. So the exemption of the large- yielding cows of Western Europe from abortion, is ex- plained by the very s/ow rate at which their capacity for large yield ‘has been developed. Now turn to Herkimer county, New York, where an average increase of 70 per cent in yield is made in many cheese-dairy herds, in less than two years, and in some cases in a single grazing season; and we see at once not only that such a rapid rate of increase cannot possibly be continued for ten nor even five years; but also that the udder-supply arteries of the cows subjected to this rapid increase in blood must be engorged during much of each grazing season, in many of these American dairy cows. 216 Cattle Problems. In the case of Netherland cows, the arteries have been seldom, if at all, engorged, and their walls have been gradually ¢Aéckeved and strengthened as blood pressure in their channels has ¢acreased,; while the walls of many American cheese-dairy and other cows have been ¢hinned down by over-rapid distention, as yield has increased, be- cause the increase of yield has been so rag7d that the arteries have of had even half time enough to thicken their walls by gradual nutrition. ‘This difference between the rafes of increase in yield in Netherland cows, in con- trast with our American dairy cows, shows why the ar- teries of the former do not become relaxed, while those of the latter are relaxed by rapid engorgement. With this explanation, various calculations that will confirm these views may be readily made.* The effect of over-rapid increase in yield and artery blood is to thin down the artery walls very much faster than nutrition can strengthen them, thus causing the loss of contractile power, which loss leads to abortion in many cows. In the table we have estimated 12 per cent yearly, as large arate of increase as seems safe, because we had in our mind the very s/ow rate of increase in the best dairy cows found in Europe; and in contrast therewith the great number of abortions in our American dairy dis- tricts, where the rate of increase in yield has been ex- tremely rapid, particularly in the new cows that mainly compose the herds that supply milk to new cheese fac- tories. To illustrate the practice that in many cases leads to abortion, suppose that in one, or in several localities, from 100 to 300 cows and heifers are bought up to form or to fill up herds that supply a new cheese factory with #See Table Artery Relaxation in Practice. 217 milk, as is frequently done in March, April and May. These cows are only moderate in their yield, because neither dairymen or non-dairying farmers, as a rule, sell their good cows. The heifers bought up are similar to the cows, the best heifers not being sold. Some of these cows have calved; others have not. When there is grass enough, the factories begin cheese- making. ‘These stranger cows of only moderate yield have formerly been accustomed to poor feed, in scant quantity. As soon as the grass is large enough they are turned to pasture; and, in addition, many herds are sup- plied with bran, shorts, meal, or other feed, that will in- crease yield rapidly. By the rst of August many of these ‘‘new’’ cows have increased their yield 50 per cent ; some of them double their yield in these three months, or in less time. The size of the udder-supply arteries is enlarged very rapidly, and these artery walls are thinned down so very rapidly, by rapid engorgement with blood, that the thinned walls become relaxed by overstrain, and are kept in a relaxed condition by the maintenance of the en- gorging supply of blood that increases yield so rapidly. The degree of artery engorgement and relaxation varies in different cows, from various causes. Late in July, or during August, many of these cows are impregnated, the relaxed condition of their udder-supply arteries not pre- venting impregnation so early after their great increase of feed and blood. The cows eat much more feed, and yield much more milk, and in numbers of them the udder-sup- ply arteries become enlarged as much as 70 to 100 per cent by increase of blood, in only eight to twelve weeks, the average increase in their artery-size being 70 per cent in fourteen months. These changes in the size of the udder, and its supply- arteries, and the co-incident thinning and relaxation of the 15 218 Cattle Problems. artery-walls by engorgement, are not observed or suspected at the time they are taking place. In almost every stranger or new cow, and in home- raised cows, the degree of increase in size, and extent of relaxation, in the udder-supply arteries, varies. Cheese making, and full-feeding, proceed without interruption till November, or later. By November, with its dry feed, there is considerable reduction in total yield and the bulk of blood made by the ‘cows ; but they are still milked. Some of them do not shrink their yield much, if well fed, though their embryos require more blood nutriment from day to day. Suddenly several of these new cows that hold out their yield best, abort their embryos, say in the fourth month of pregnancy. Several others abort a month later, holding their yield fairly, if well fed ; while the cows that dry up early do not abort. What is the reason of the first batch of abortions, when the yield is fair? And of the second batch a month Jater ? We have spacc only to indicate the principal, or general causes. The reason why cows—new cows more than others— abort their embryos in such cases, is because the embryos are starved to death, by reason of the udder-supply arteries being relaxed at an enlarged size, causing the conveyance of so much of the mammary blood to the udder, that the supply to the embryo becomes deficient, but cannot be in- creased, when increase is vitally necessary to maintain embryo life; because the udder-supply arteries, being re- laxed, cannot be contracted, nor the supply of blood to the milk glands reduced. The greater the degree of engorgement in summer, and relaxation in the udder-supply arteries, the earlier abortion occurs, because the larger the share of blood flowing to the udder, the earlier the supply to the embryo hecomes in- ‘IIA OALVId Artery Relaxation in Practice. 219 sufficient to enlarge or continue its growth. The embryo supply of blood nutrition is not increased, because the blood supply to the udder is not reduced, the power of di- verting the udder-supply to the embryo being lost, by the loss of contractility in the udder-supply arteries, in the cows that abort. The less the degree of engorgement and relaxation in the udder-supply arteries, the larger the blood supply to the embryo; and the longer and later the growth of the embryo continues. The earlier abortion occurs, the greater the degree of engorgement and relaxation of the udder- supply arteries, and the earlier the embryo dies, because its blood supply is not, and cannot be, increased. As the very large majority of 86 per cent of aborted em- bryos are dead when delivered, we here refer to a diagram illustrating the arrest or stoppage of increase in blood supply, and the arrested growth of the embryos. As engorgement affects small and large arteries similarly, we assume, for the purpose of explanation, that all the mammary blood flows in the large artery d, Fig. 1, Plate VII.,* as far as e, same fig., where the branch, g, leads to the embryo, 4. The other branch, /, is the udder-supply artery, leading to the udder, ~. Assume that at about mid- term half the blood flows to embryo, #, the other half sup- plying the udder, Z. At this time the embryo is about half grown, as at £R, but its growth cannot be enlarged, nor even continued, to the full-term size, 2, without an in- creased supply of blood. There is no other source from which an increased supply of blood to the embryocan come than from the blood that supplies the udder through the artery, f£ But the udder-supply artery, / is relaxed at a much enlarged size ; and being relaxed, cannot be contract- *It will be understood that all the plates are largely diagramatic, and must not be understood by the reader to be anatomical representations of the parts referred to. 220 Cattle Problems. ively closed. The artery, 4 being relaxed, the quantity of blood it conveys to the udder, #, cannot be reduced, conse- quently the supply of blood to theembryo, 4, cannot be increased. Relaxation of the artery, 4, prevents its con- traction to the dotted lines, 0; hence the embryo supply, g, cannot be increased to g2, as is required, to continue its growth to mm. Consequently the embryo-growth is ar- rested at 22, and the embryo is starved to death, and aborted at the half-size, 2%, instead of being enlarged by growth to the full-term size, zm, as is required for full-term delivery. The detached figs. 2 and 3, same plate, indi- cate, by the reversed angles, that to continue embryo growth to the full term, #7, the blood supply to the udder, pf, must be reduced as much as the blood supply of the em- bryo, #, is increased, to continue embryo breeding. Fig. 4 shows a greatly-enlarged and relaxed artery, the walls be- ing much thinned down by an engorging and relaxing in- crease of blood, as appears in the sections, J and 42. The relaxed and enlarged portions of the artery wall, or tissue, ¢ and cz, show the spreading of the artery fibres further apart, very much weakening the walls, as takes place when the arteries are expanded to nearly twice their natural size, by an engorging and relaxing increase of blood, and its expansive pressure against the artery walls. CHAPTER XXITf, CHARACTERISTICS OF ABORTION EXTRAORDINARY. Lt Results from Relaxation of the Udder-Supply Artertes. Abortion from ordinary causes, such as fright, worrying, over-strain, hurts, great fatigue, etc., may take place at any time; but in such cases there are no marks, or evi- dence of starvation in the embryo, nor in the placental vessels. But in cases of abortion from udder-supply ar- tery engorgement, the evidences of starvation are clear, in the emaciated condition of the embryos, and in the partly emptied and degenerated condition of the placental vessels. This evidence, and its authoritive confirmation by Dr. J. C. Dalton, who states that this disorder does not result from any of the ordinary causes of abortion in man, or in farm animals, excludes the old time ordinary causes of abortion from consideration. And we have ac- cordingly designated this disorder ‘‘ extraordinary,”’ as it evidently is, because it results from the anomalous and extraordinary engorgement of certain arteries, in distinc- tion from other parts or organs.* The strong evidences of starvation, already shown as the cause of embryo death, are amply confirmed by the failure of increase in blood supply to the embryos at certain stages of their growth, which has already been explained in Chapter XXI. Dr. Dalton also affirms} that this modern kind of abor- * See page 193—Note, +See his report published by State Agricultural Socicty, at Albany, N. Y. O29 Cattle Problems. tion is ‘‘not epidemic in New York.’’ Still there seems to be a vague notion in some quarters that it is epidemic. But the only thing in which there is any semblance of any epidemic is, that extraordinary abortions occur in clusters of cases, or in numbers of cows together at the same time. Instances of from two to twenty cases have occured together, and may again. The aborting cows, in such cases, fre- quently reach their head over their pasture fences ; the un- affected cows in adjoining pastures, in some cases, even in- haling the expired breath of aborting cows without becom- ing affected, showing clearly enough that there is no in- fection, or epidemic in cases of this kind of abortion. In fact this kind of abortion is not a disease, but results from the engorgement and injury of the udder-supply arteries. The reason and explanation of clusters, or groups of cases occuring together is: the cows that abort together are previously brought into the dairy herds together, or at nearly the same time, and have their udder-supply arteries engorged and relaxed to a nearly like extent, from nearly a similar increase of feed and blood. ‘This increase of blood establishes a similar extent or degree of relaxation, in the udder-supply arteries; which is the predisposing cause, and reason of clusters or numbers of cows aborting in groups or together, as frequently happens in new herds, formed mainly of new cows. Some persons assign microscopic fungi in the tissues as the cause of abortion; but Dr. Dalton carefully examined in special cases, without finding any such growths. But as it clearly appears that the embryos de from starvation, the fungoid theory is alluded to merely to show its inap- plicability. The exemption of farms, herds, and localities, of small or considerable extent, from the affection, is explained by the circumstance of half, three-fourths, or some other pro- Characteristics of Abortion. 223 portion of the cows that abort, in numbers of instances, being ‘‘new’’ cows, which are known to be about 100 per cent more liable to abort, than cows that are home-raised. Numbers of new cows that have their arteries relaxed, con- sequently abort ; while on the exempted farms there are probably fewer new cows in the exempted herds, and the cows may not be quite so fully fed, or the quality of the food may be somewhat different. Even a slight difference in quantity or quality of feed, or of increase in blood, be- ing quite sufficient* to exempt the intermitted herds or farms, from such relaxation of the arteries as occurs in af- fected herds. In such cases, it is the last ounce, even a smadé actual increase in blood that engorges ; the /ast grain turns the scale ; a sdight increase in degree of engorgement beyond a certain extent, relaxes the walls of the udder- supply arteries, that are already much distended. Home-raised cows are frequently large in their yield; but they are less liable to abortion, because there is no rapid increase or change in their supply of feed, as a rule. Some few may eat more feed when fed together with mew cows, and so increase the quantity of their blood so far, if only 5 to 10 per cent, as to over-strain and relax their dis- tended arteries, and afterwards abort from such relaxation. Numbers of herds of large-yielding cows are, however, exempt, because they do not have their feed, or blood, or udder-supply artery size ragzdZy or rashly increased at any time, the rule being that changes in their feed are only gradually made. Heifers are as liable to increase their blood from increase of feed, and to engorge their udder-supply arteries, as cows. But heifers that are treated like exempted cows do not abort, while heifers that are new to the full-feeding, being brought in with new or stranger cows, and having *See diagrams, Plate VI. 224 Cattle Problems. as much increase in feed, abort in as large proportion to number as the ‘‘new’’ cows of moderate or small yield, with which the heifers are brought in and fed in dairy herds. Abortion in the dry-feed season is, in part, explained by a great reduction in the total circulation; the cows, in many cases, starving their own tissues, and becoming thin. Concentrated feed, in such cases, makes the blood thicker, but does not much increase its bulk; hence a reduced total or quantity of blood, and a reduced quantity of it conveyed in the mammary arteries to the udder. Still, the over-size and relaxed condition of the engorged arteries that supply the udder with blood, are ze¢ much reduced in aborting cows until after the embryos are starved to death, for growth in the embryo is arrested by won-cncrease of blood previous to the abortment. ‘There are fewer cases of abortion in old cheese-factory districts than in new factory districts, as in the old districts and herds, aborting and other poor cows are weeded out ; and feeding is much more careful—from dearly bought ex- perience—than in new dairy localities, where everything is new, and little experience has been had. Cows that have once aborted are far more liable to again abort than cows that have never aborted; as, when cows once abort, they are predisposed by more or less remaining relaxation from the previous distention in the udder-supply arteries, to another abortment at about the same period of pregnancy at which the first takes place, by an equal de- gree of engorgement and an cqual increase of blood the next season, to that which relaxed the udder-supply arte- ries the previous season. The arteries of such aborting cows have ot had time to recover from their relaxation by the first engorgement, before the next engorging in- crease of blood again relaxes them, which explains. the greater liability of cows to repeated than to first abortions, Characteristics of Abortion. 225 No other known cause than prevented increase in blood supply to the embryos, accounts for the sudden arrest of their growth by the stoppage of the placental circula- tion, and the consequent death of the embryos; nor for the evidences of the embryos being starved; nor for the clusters of abortions that occur together ; nor for the greater lability of ‘‘new’’ cows and heifers to abort ; nor for the greater liability of cows to second, than to first abortions. But the certain engorgement of the udder-supply arteries from over-strain, which is as certain as the increase of blood, itself, by over degrees of rapid engorgement with blood, accounts for, and explains all these extraordinary and peculiar characteristics as the necessary result of over- rapid increase, in feed, blood, and artery expansion, in de- grees that lead to the Joss of contractile power in the udder- supply arteries, thus preventing increase of embryo nutri- tion, and causing embryo death, and so making abortment a necessity. CHAPTER XXIV. SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT ON ABORTION, As the result of Embryo Starvation from the Engorgement and Relaxation of the Udder-Supply Arteries. The preceding argument in detail, with the evidences, and illustrations, together making a sufficiently complete demonstration, the following conclusions are connected in a series of links, completing the chain of argument, in preference to giving a summary of the chapters :— 1. The extremely rapid and large increase in yield, by aborting cows, necessitates an equally large and rapid pre- vious increase in blood, and in the size of the arteries that convey it to the udder. 2. The engorgement and great expansion of the udder- supply artery tubes with blood from rapid increase of feed, being abrupt, the resulting over-strain of the artery-wall tissues is equally abrupt and extreme; the over-strain causing relaxation by discohesion in the degree of the ex- cessive strain from engorgement. 3. Engorgement and its over-strain, thins down the ar- tery walls in degree according to increase in their tubular size, by over-rapid distension from too rapid increase of blood, and its pressure. 4. The engorging supply of blood to the milk-glands, continuing to maintain yield, the large size at which the udder-supply arteries are relaxed is maintained by main- taining the large bulk of blood and yield; thus keeping the relaxed arteries as full and as much over-strained as at the time of their relaxation, Argument on Abortion. 227 5. The thin and relaxed condition of the artery-walls becomes more or less chronic or permanent, in many cows, the arteries losing their natural elasticity by prolonged in- action, from loss of contractile power, their enlarged size becoming fixed, from assimilation in their walls during the continued engorgement, while they are too thin and weak to contract. 6. The size of the udder-supply arteries, when relaxa- tion takes place, varies in different cows. But the enlarged artery tubes convey much more than the previous quantity of blood to the milk glands; the necessary supply of blood to the embryo being correspondingly reduced by the un- natural increase in the udder-supply, thus reducing the source of embryo nutrition, by increasing blood flow to the udder. 7. At some stage of embryo growth, or enlargement, the reduced or fixed supply of blood to the embryo be- comes insufficient, because, being fixed by artery relaxation, in cannot be increased, as the size of the udder-supply ar- teries, and the supply of blood they convey to the milk glands, being fixed, cannot be reduced. 8. There is no source from which embryo nutrition, or growth, can be increased, except by diverting a sufficient, and constantly increasing quantity of the large and fixed blood supply flowing to the udder, into the ovarian and uterine artery channels, to thereby increase the placental circulation, and so increase the nutrition required by the embryo. g. The deficient, non-increasing placental circulation is also fixed by the over-strain and relaxation of the udder-supply arteries, there being no increase in the total of mammary blood, unless the cow starves her own tis- sues. Hence there can be no increase of blood nutrition to the embryo, except by, and in proportion to, some re- duction in the udder-supply of blood. 228 Cattle Problems. 1o. The laws of embryo life require a constant in- crease in growth and size, and a corresponding increase of nutriment to add to and enlarge size, so increasing embryo growth—which is always enlargement by assimila- tion of an increased blood supply to the embryo. 11. The mammary blood is naturally provided and circulated to form and increase embryo growth, the two sets of mammary arteries being located and adapted to one succeed the other in use, the uterine set supplying the embryo previous to birth; and the udder-supply set sup- plying the milk-glands for the calf, after its full-time de- livery. 12. The division of the mammary blood to supply both the embryo and the milk-glands at once does not in- crease its total quantity, so the embryo nourishment must be deficient whenever the supply is too small to enlarge embryo size or growth. Hence, grow/h by increased nu- trition must cease, unless the placental circulation be in- creased according to increasing size and demand of the embryo. 13. But the supply of blood to the embryo cannot be increased, the only source of increase being the udder- supply, which canzof be reduced, as the engorged size of the udder-supply arteries remains fixed and w#diminished, by reason of continued distention and relaxation. In this way the effect of the udder-supply artery engorgement is embryo s¢éarvation. And abortment follows as the neces- sary alternative, to prevent the death of the cows. 14. Nearly all the aborted embryos are dead previous to delivery ; their appearance, and that of the aborting cows, showing no marks of disease, but clear evidences of embryo starvation, both in the drained vessels of the placenta, and the emaciated or starved appearance of the embryos when delivered, 15. It is daily twice demonstrated in the pail, and Argument on Abortion. 229 continued large udder-size, that the udder-supply of blood is not reduced, and for that reason there is no increase of blood or nutriment in the embryo-supplying arteries. Nor can there be an increase of blood devoted to that purpose, while the relaxed condition of the udder-supply arteries continues. The demonstration here concluded supplies in detail, the reasons why udder-supply artery engorge- ment leads to embryo starvation from arrest of nutrition, and the necessary miscarriage, or premature delivery, and other consequences, as explained in other chapters on the subject. CHAPTER XXV., FarLurne or ABORTING Cows ro Breen. Accidental Engorgement of the Uterine and Ovartan Ar- feries. Sometime during the year 1871, or 1872, the owner of an extensive cheese factory,* and a herd of good Ayr- shire cattle, was troubled with a case of abortion in an ex- cellent Ayrshire cow, that soon after her miscarriage came rapidly into heat, and coupled, but she did not become in calf, and the heated condition recurred four or five times in succession, the cow still failing to breed. Happening to meet the proprietor of the herd, he consulted us, and we recommended isolation and quict for the cow. After- wards, he informed us, that isolation did not lead to breed- ing, for the heat and coupling frequently recurred. This circumstance led us to distrust the efficiency of quietude alone in allaying the coupling heat, that comes on fre- quently, without leading to pregnancy from coupling, in numbers of cows that have aborted. Since that occurrence we have devoted much time to ob- servation, inquiry and meditation on the subject, with the hope of being able to explain the reason of the repeated recurrence of coupling heat, and the failure of the abort- ing cows to breed. The disordered organs, in such cases, cannot be inspect- ed; hence, we are restricted to circumstantial evidence, and to reasoning by comparison. Still, though positive ‘demonstration is impracticable, there are conditions and *Mr. Chester IIazen, Wisconsin. Failure to Breed. 231 facts in such cases that enable us to draw conclusions that are mainly consistent, and probably trustworthy. The heated condition which leads to coupling, for in- stance, would not come on without an increase of blood and heat in the region of the ovaries. Nor would coup- ling recur so much more frequently than at the normal in- tervals, unless there was a recurrence of abundant blood in the region of the ovaries, as frequently is the case when this accidental coupling heat comes on in cows, after they have aborted. The peculiar circumstance in cows that have recently aborted is: They come into heat in a few days—from four to ten—after aborting, which is contrary to natural rule ; as the cow species breed only once a year, naturally, and do not come into heat for several weeks after calving, or until they are capable of breeding, which is generally about the time the calf’s teeth are grown, and hard enough to enable it to graze. Then, milk being no longer demand- ed by the grazing calf, the cow dries up, and the milk- forming blood, not being demanded at the udder, the blood supply and heat about the ovaries are increased, bringing on heat, or cestrum in the natural way, and at the natural period. In aborting cows, on the other hand, coupling heat comes on in a few days after they abort, which, in different cases, varies all the way from the third or fourth to the seventh or eighth month, the coupling heat occurring in a few days after such premature delivery; this preliminary condition of breeding, thus occurring in and invading the current breeding season, even as far back as the mid- dle of a current and unexpired breeding term. So the heat that comes on early and suddenly after an abortment, occurs at various premature periods, or by from one to six months earlier than breeding begins again, in cows that carry their calves to full term; this arising from a dis- 232 Cattle Problems. ordered condition of the blood circulation, giving rise to such accidental heat and premature coupling, or coupling entirely out of the normal season. How, or from what circumstances does this premature coupling, and the false heat that leads to it, arise? Thisisa pertinent and important question, and requires as consis- tent and reasonable an answer as, under the circumstances, it may be practicable to give. When cows abort at amy period of pregnancy, from udder-supply artery engorgement—as explained in the chapter on that subject—the demand for blood nutrition by the embryo is abruptly terminated by the premature expulsion of the embryo and placenta from the breeding organ together. ‘The demand for blood nutrition for the embryo being thus suddenly terminated by abortment, a rapidly-produced condition of engorgement in the uterine and ovarian blood-vessels is the result. In any case of abortment, after the third or fourth month, the degree of engorgement arising from the sud- denly arrested flow of blood to the embryo, must be great in extent in the ovarian region. But, when abortion occurs about the fourth month, or later, the glut of blood that engorges the uterine and ovarious blood-ves- sels is increased, according to the /aéeness of the period at which it occurs, and the size of the embryo when the abortion takes place—the degree of engorgement being according to the size of the embryo, because the quantity of blood whose flow is arrested is according to the size of the embryo when its demand for nutriment suddenly ceases from abrupt abortment. It appears certain, then, that when abortion occurs as late as the middle of preg- nancy, as happens in many instances, the extent of en- gorgement by a sudden glut in the blood-vessels of the breeding organ, and in the proximate vessels of the ovaries and oviducts, must be extreme, and of course Failure to Breed. 233 must lead to other and further results, that are as abnormal as is the occurrence of abortion itself. In other words, while abortion, at an advanced stage of pregnancy, cer- tainly causes engorgement in the blood-vessels of the breeding organ, this condition of engorgement must lead to several other equally abnormal and unseasonable conse- quences.* The first and most immediate result of engorgement of the blood-vessels surrounding the uterus and ovaries, is a cer- tain, but variable degree of relaxation in the walls of the arteries, and their capillaries, which results from their sudden and extreme distention, causing more or less relax- ation from this extreme over-strain by engorgement. The natural outlet for the blood-flow toward the uterus, being thus cut off by abortment, blood accumulates in, and great- ly distends, the uterine artery vessels ; which takes place very rapidly. This glutting process continues until the uterine blood-vessels become engorged and distended to the extent of 50 to 100 per cent, probably much more in some instances, in which engorgement from abortion oc- curs. The consequence is, the thinning of the uterine and ovarian artery walls down to the extent of 50 to 100 per cent below their natural thickness; and this result must consistently ensue in the small capillary vessels as well as in the larger tubes of the uterine system of blood-vessels ! The natural outlet and demand for the blood that thus accumulates in and engorges the uterine and ovarian blood- vessels, as just pointed out, being cut off, no means of im- mediately relieving the engorged vessels appears. * It requires about two weeks after full-time delivery for the uterus to contract to its ante-breeding size, and as much as two months to restore it to the ante-pregnant condition, by involution. In almost parallel cases, the weakness and disorder resulting from abortion continue for a long time, in some instances ; and it is highly probable that the disordered condition of the uterine and ovarian organs and blood-vessels, in cows, continues so long as to become permanent, when the degree of engorgement in the uterus and ovarian blood-vessels is so abrupt and extreme as it certainly is in many cases of abortion, 16 93 Cattle Problems. Concurrently with the engorgement of the uterine and ovarian blood-vessels, a much thinned condition, and cor- responding state of relaxation, in the capillary walls of the uterine blood-vessels results; and the enlarged size and thinned walls of the capillaries must continue for a length of time proportioned to the degree of expansion and re- laxation, so making the reduction of the engorging quan- tity of blood in the uterine and ovarian blood-vessels, a slow and prolonged process. When coupling fever occurs at the natural season after full-term delivery, it results conditionally, or from the presence of an increased amount of blood, and blood heat in the ovarian blood-vessels. And the presence of coupling fever soon after the accidental engorgement that abortion leads to, indicates the presence of augmented blood and heat about the ovaries, from accidental engorgement. It is no matter for wonder, therefore, that coupling fever comes on in cows soon after abortment. Nor is it a mat- ter for surprise, that the relaxed condition of the uterine and capillary vessels, caused by engorgement, becomes more or less chronic in numbers of cows. The active circulation of the blood in the ovarian ves- sels continues as long as the engorgement, but the large increase in their contents seems to account for the increased quantity of heat, and its continuance in large supply in the increased quantity of blood. The pathological condition of the ovarian vessels and organs during accidental engorgement, is not, however, clearly ascertainable. The occurrence and frequent re- currence of coupling soon after abortment, indicates that there is either a long continued, or frequently recurring accumulation of heat about the ovaries; the excess of blood certainly continuing for a considerable time. Physiologists state that ova are maturing at all seasons, as may be necessary to make impregnation possible, But Failure to Breed. 235 it is scarcely consistent to infer that mature ova are abund- ant in the midst of a breeding term, when a large amount of blood is required by the embryo. Ova are abundant after calving at full term, when there is much less demand at the uterus for blood. Hence matured ova are probably jew during pregnancy, and much more abundant after full-term delivery ; and fewer still after an abortment, some time previous to full term. We are limited to conjecture, in such cases, as to why aborting cows repeatedly fail to breed, after single and repeated recurrences of heat and coupling. But there is certacn/y a much disordered and feverish condition of the uterine and ovarian organs. There is probably also an irritated and zzflamed condition of both these parts. The repeated recurrence of this accidental heat, in a degree that leads to coupling, is the result of a more or less prolonged continuance of the condition of engorge- ment, or its recurrence in the blood-vessels around the uterus and ovaries, as already intimated. This engorge- ment probably continues a longer or shorter period, ac- cording to the degree of artery relaxation, and is likely to be greater, and to require more time for its reduction, the larger the embryo and its blood supply are at the time of the abortment. And the greater the extent of relaxa- tion from engorgement around the ovaries, in any given case, the longer the local excess of blood must continue ; and the number of recurring heat periods and couplings will usually correspond. That the accidental presence of more blood, and blood heat, about the ovaries, leads to coupling from this ex- cess of active blood-heat, seems highly probable. A gen- erally disordered condition of the uterus, and ovarian parts, resulting from abortion, is certazm. There may be result- ing degeneration in the oviducts, or these tubes may pos- sibly be closed by the compression resulting from the irri- 236 Cattle Problems. tated and swollen condition of contiguous parts. And even if ova are impregnated, they may not adhere to the walls of the breeding organ, as the latter are liable to de- grees of ulceration, leading to the formation of pus, while there is probably an escape of blood from the re- laxed capillary walls into the genital and other cavities, as shown in some cows, by bloodlike discharges. In fact, it is evidently impossible that abortment at an advanced stage of pregnancy could take place without producing a much disordered and injured condition of structure in the uterus, and in the proximate ovarian organs, and such conditions may continue for months. It may therefore be inferred that the disordered state of the ovarian organs prevents impregnation, or that the dis- ordered condition of the uterine walls prevents the ovarian attachment in the uterus that is necessary to breeding, either of these disordered conditions being sufficient to prevent breeding. The discharge of blood through the genital passages, that is sometimes met with in cows, occurring each time they repeatedly come into heat after aborting, is evidence of a greatly disordered condition of the genital organs and vessels ; and the relaxed and weakened condition resulting from abortion, and consequent engorgement, sufficiently accounts for the escape of blood from its natural channels into the genital passages ; and though we cannot of course precisely explain how any such particularly disordered con- dition, so evident and certain, in several proximate parts and vessels is produced, it evidently results from the greatly disordered condition of the uterus, brought on by abortment, and the accidental engorgement of the numer- ous uterine and ovarian blood-vessels. Accordingly, the secondary and accidental engorgement and artery relaxation, which leads to unseasonable heat and coupling, during a current breeding term, necessarily Failure to Breed. 237 results from abortion, as its originating and abnormal cause; and the chief matter for surprise is that any abort- ing cows should be able to breed during such a greatly dis- ordered condition of the breeding organs, in the midst of an unexpired breeding term. A probable reason why some aborting cows breed, is their aborting early in pregnancy, and then sustaining less injury, because their embryos are small, and there is less engorgement in the uterine and ovarian blood-vessels from a lesser degree of distention. Some cows, from weak di- gestive power, produce only a light supply of blood at any time; others have strong constitutions, and can bear much derangement of their breeding organs, with less injury than weaker cows sustain. Whatever the minor differences in degree of injury or in the exact locality of its occurrence may be, it is certain that great disorder and injury in the uterine and ovarian organs results from abortion, and the relaxing engorgement it leads to in the uterine region. This secondary engorgement is itself abnormal and ac- cidental, the coupling fever arising from it being also ab- normal and out of season. And, whatever particular dis- placement, lesion, or degree of disorder, or combined in- fluences may prevent impregnation in such cases, the fail- ure to breed is due to one or several of the greatly deranged and unhealthy conditions, into which the uterine parts and blood-vessels are precipitated by the severe disorder resulting in the uterus from abortment, and in the ovarian organs from the engorgement, of which unseasonable de- livery by aborting cows is the immediate cause. So that abortion itself, in many cases, apparently suspends, im- pairs, or destroys the breeding power, and the future use- fulness of cows that are much injured by prematurely and abruptly aborting their embryos. CHAPTER XXVI. PREVENTION OF ABORTION IN Cows. Resting Them, and Other After-Treatment. When the natural power of any organ or part in an animal is weakened or impaired by overtaxing its strength, rest, to give nature’s resources a chance to act, is the only alternative offering hope of recovery, by the restoration of lost strength. And, although from the nature of abor- tion, resulting as it does from over-strain, or extreme and rapid rates of expansion and thinning of the udder-supply artery walls, by engorgement, there can be xo ¢mmediate remedy or cure for the resulting relaxation in the artery walls; still, there may be a degree of recovery of lost contractility, in some cases, when artery relaxation is not too severe. In another chapter, the well-known fact that farrow cows do recover power to breed, after breeding power has been suspended temporarily, is explained. In their case, the artery walls s/owdy regain contractile power during rest, by the restorative influence of slow nutrition, long con- tinued. The older cows are when the injury by relaxtion takes place, the slower the reparative process by the circulation, or, more correctly, by assimilation ; bodily activity, and the rate of circulation, both being reduced as age ad- vances. Consequently the chances of recovery are great- est in young cows. When heifers abort their first em- bryos, they should be dried off as soon as practicable. But as the conditions of primary breeding, such as fully Prevention of Abortion. 239 mature ova, and a sufficient supply of breeding blood to continuously sustain embryonic breeding, rarely concur till two months after full-term delivery, heifers that abort should zot be allowed to couple till six or eight weeks after the expiration of full-term. This interval allows time for considerable recuperation, or recovery of strength and contractility in the relaxed artery walls, by assimila- tive repair. In nearly all cases, the less rapidly cows dry up their yield, the more their arteries, and sometimes their milk- glands and udder-sacks, are relaxed, whether this weakened condition has been brought about slowly or rapidly. If heifers or cows abort early after pregnancy, their udder-supply arteries are probably relaxed severely, and the injury has most likely been rapidly inflicted. Hence, when either heifers or young cows abort before the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy, they should zor be al- lowed to couple till from ¢hree to nine months after the expiration of full term. If they abort before the middle of their term, they should zo¢ be milked for about ten or twelve months. The principle is the same as to over-strain in the udder- supply artery walls, as in the human wrist, instep, or other parts; the greater the injury, the longer the time required for repairing it, the more time required for rest. When abortion, resulting from artery relaxation in cows, takes place before mid-term, the relaxation of the artery walls must certainly be severe, as the blood supply to the embryo fails at an early period, showing great expansion of the udder-supply arteries, and that these arteries do not contract, as they should, when the embryo requires an in- crease of blood nutrition, as indicated by the feeling of hunger impressed on the nerves of the cow. The chances of young cows recovering full contractile power, after extreme engorgement and relaxation of the 240 Cattle Problems. udder-supply arteries are greater when they abort late, after the sixth month, for instance. In such cases the degree of artery relaxation is probably not very severe, and three to six months rest, after the expiration of full term, may result in the recovery of full breeding power, and the pre- vious milking capacity. But—as a matter of opinion—we doubt the propriety or safety of ever again subjecting any cow, whatever, /o very Full feed after she has once aborted, earlier than the sixth month of pregnancy. This is a topic of such importance that it must lead to much discussion, and also to close investigation, which we have neither space nor time to engage in at present. Hence we are restricted to the less certain sphere of opinion, based on probabilities. Resting our views on this basis, supported by analogy, we advise :— 1. That neither heifers nor cows be allowed to couple, in any instance, after aborting, until eight weeks after the expiration of full term; as, though there may be abundant heat, one or more of the necessary conditions of breeding may not exist. 2. When either heifer or cow aborts from udder-supply artery relaxation, before the sixth month of pregnancy, coupling should be prohibited until six months after the expiration of full term. 3. Neither cows nor heifers that abort before the fourth month of pregnancy should be allowed to couple in less than nine months after the expiration of fullterm. It is to be understood, also, that a moderate amount of feed, for several weeks after an abortment, is much safer than full feeding. ‘The quantity of feed should be reduced consid- erably, forthwith, after miscarriage, to prevent the engorge- ment of the uterine and ovarian blood-vessels ; and to pre- clude, as far as practicable, the long delay of recovery that Prevention of Abortion. 241 must result from continuing full feed, and the engorged condition of the uterine blood-vessels. Moderate feeding only, should be allowed until after the expiration of full term, and always after an abortment; and the cow or heifer, in any case, should be dried up as soon as praeticable after an abortment, to allow of the thicken- ing of the artery walls, so to promote the recovery of con- tractility, if possible, by resting the udder-supply arteries. As already stated, we doubt the propriety of feeding any aborting cow as fully as other cows that have never abort- ed, are fed. In other words, it appears to us that the ar- teries which have been once over-strained and relaxed by engorgement, should not again be so fully distended with blood, as a degree of blood pressure equal to that which previously relaxed, might cause a similar degree of over- strain, relaxation, and abortion a second time. This is the reason why moderate feeding, and less blood and blood pressure seem desirable in cows that have once aborted. It is safer on the whole to employ aborting cows for breeding only, afterward, if they are good milkers, and well-formed cows, likely to breed good calves, as they can be kept separate from the milk herd, fed moderately, and thetr calves allowed to run with them, and take a// their milk; as when the udder is kept nearly empty by the fre- quent sucking of the calf, there is no dack-setting of the blood in the udder-supply arteries ; while moderate feed- ing prevents these arteries being excessively distended with blood. By such management, cows that have once aborted may be used for breeding heifers with advantage, as thousands of cows that have never aborted, and are rarely or never hand-milked, do in the large herds and open ranges of the West, where it is much more profitable to use cows for breeding than for milk only. And, cer- tainly, if it be profitable to breed calves at all, it is most 242 Cattle Problems. profitable to breed as large calves as can be raised, by let- ting them take and convert all the milk of the cows, so forming large growth; for, in nearly all cases, calves can consume all the milk their dams yield, so making large growth instead of small size. When inferior cows abort, the best course is to fatten them, unless they are known to bring good calves, as some- times may happen. PREVENTING ABORTION. We have shown in preceding chapters that the relaxa- tion of the udder-supply arteries results from an over- rapid and excessive increase of blood; that such rapidity of increase in blood corresponds to increase in yield; and that very rapid increase in yield is therefore attended with great danger of relaxing the arteries that convey blood to the udder. It has long been a maxim—derived from the experience of successful feeders and dairymen—that changes in feed should never be rapid or great in extent, the sufficient reason being that either increase or reduction of feed causes a similar increase or reduction in the quantity of blood in the circulation, thereby causing correspond- ing changes in the extent of artery blood in steers and store stock; and an increase or reduction in yield corresponding with increase or reduction of feed and blood in milk- yielding cows. The point to be especially considered is : That when feed is increased very rapidly, the increase of blood is about as rapid; and that when the arteriés are very rapidly engorged with blood, their walls or tunics are liable to be thinned down and relaxed, thereby losing the power to contract, from which loss of con- tractile power abortion results, as explained in chapters on that subject. Moderation, when increasing feed, should therefore always be practiced, as even with store or fattening cattle, rapid increase in feed cloys, and puts Prevention of Abortion. 243 animals off appetite, causing temporary indigestion, and sometimes evident shrinkage of flesh. In milk cows, though there be a greater demand for blood, and for food to form it, the limits of safe degrees and rates of expansion in the arteries of different cows are soon reached. We have stated, in the table, the safe rate of increase in yield, and in udder-supply artery capacity, and quantity of blood, at 12 per cent yearly, in young cows till the age of maturity; and by reading the chapter on ‘‘ How Good Cows are Produced,’’ and parts of others—see introduction—-the treatment necessary to prevent abortion will be understood in principle and detail. Over-rapid and extreme rates of increase in feed or blood, and consequently in yield, has originated the abor- tion trouble ; therefore, the only apparent alternative treatment which can prevent abortion, is in the conserva- tive direction of slow change; or moderation in degrees of increase in feed; more steadiness in carrying out the motto, ‘‘ Exceisior,’’ making less haste to get large yield, and thereby increasing the certainty of achieving that end, by exercising more caution and care. Such a course in- vites fewer risks, accidents, or catastrophes, that are at once costly without advantage, and cruel without neces- sity. That a moderate course in feeding cows or increasing their feed is best, is consistent with the motto of Seneca, and, according to ages of experience by the people of Holstein and Holland, where, from the necessity of the case, large yielding capacity has been but very gradually developed, by only moderate increase of feed, extending through long periods of time. The most simple causes are usually least suspected and last discovered, as in the case of abortion. But the dairy- men of the future may congratulate themselves in having 244 Cattle Problems. the means of preventing any such widespread and heavy losses as have heretofore been sustained from this disorder, fully under their control. The preventive means con- sist in substituting prudent care for rash haste, preclud- ing loss or alarm by preventing miscarriages, so saving the cows, and thus largely increasing the certainty and profit of dairying ; also remembering that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, that prevention is better than cure, and that in order to prevent, it is necessary, to know the rea- son why. Considering these facts, dairymen will probably benefit themselves much more than the author by extend- ing the circulation and encouraging the perusal of this work, particularly the chapters relating to abortion ex- traordinary, and kindred topics. GHAPTEM 3.x VIET, Farrow Cows, AND INTERMITTED BREEDING. Weakened Contractility in the Udder-Supply Arteries. A sufficient supply of blood in the region of the ovaries and the oviducts, is of course necessary to supply the blood and heat from which the coupling results in cows at any season of the year. But the intermission of breeding du- ring alternate years or longer periods, by farrow cows, is so peculiar a circumstance, that it cannot occur without an equally peculiar cause; and, after careful study and inquiry, the conclusion is arrived at, that partial relaxation of the udder-supply arteries is the cause of these intermissions of breeding power, during one or more years, in farrow cows. Rest in the breeding organs is necessary to allow the cows to recover sufficient contractility in their weak- ened artery-wall muscles, to enable them to again become fit for breeding. In farrow cows, the relaxation of the udder-supply arte- ries is light in extent; yet the enlargement of these arteries is sufficient to preclude the augmentation of blood, and blood heat in the ovarian blood-vessels, in the degree that can give rise to coupling heat. Too large a proportion of the blood is conveyed by the enlarged and partially re- laxed udder-supply arteries to the milk glands, to admit of a sufficient blood-supply to induce coupling heat being diverted to the ovarian blood-vessels, to excite their natu- ral functions of activity. This accounts for the failure to breed in a succeeding season, of cows that bred in the pre- ylous year ; the partially relaxed udder-supply arteries re- 246 Cattle Problems. quiring “me for rest, and recovery of their weakened con- tractility. Many farrow cows yield more than an average quantity of milk, and half of them probably are owned by persons keeping only a few cows. In such cases the best yielders be- come pets, and are frequently treated as such, by extra or special feeding, chiefly with bran slop, or scalded corn- meal pudding, etc. The rapid increase of blood from too large supplies of such feed, probably engorges and relaxes the udder-supply arteries in such cows, that are already yielding largely, their arteries being already distended up to the full limits they can bear without relaxation. In this condition only a slight increase of feed and blood may relax the artery walls in degrees that will require one or two years’ rest, to give time for the relaxation to disappear, by the recovery of lost degrees of contractility in the ar- tery-wall tunics. In such cases blood and artery size are perhaps slightly increased, together with yield. The artery walls, during the intermitted season, have time to thicken by nutrition; and by thickening, regain sufficient contractility to enable the cows to breed the second or third season, by contracting their udder-supply arteries so far as to divert enough blood, and blood heat, to the ovarian region to bring on the natural coupling heat, or cestrum, which leads to impregnation, from pairing. In most farrow cow cases, however, the large yield, be- ing resumed at the next calving time, is continued or in- creased, the relaxed condition being soon again reached by the increased pressure of increased bulk of blood, to form yield, so that but few farrow cows ever again become regular or permanent breedcrs after one intermission ; many of their number permanently failing to breed after one, or perhaps two, successes in alternate seasons. If it is particularly desirable to have a farrow cow breed again, the only way is to dry her up, so that the udder- Intermitted Breeding. 247 supply arteries may regain their contractility, if the re- laxation be not too severe; but the extent of injury, or the probability of recovery, can only be determined by trial of this course. The better and only safe course is, very gradual increase in feed, and in blood made from it; in artery size and udder supply; and in udder size and milk yield. When yield is only gradually augmented, the artery walls gradually gain strength, and maintain their contrac- tility ; and injury to either udder or arteries is prevented by the maintenance of contractile power, as is natural to both; and indispensably necessary in the udder-supplying arteries, to prevent the suspension or permanent loss of: breeding power in the cows that are so profitable while in milk, because their full yielding power is established. But it is not best nor even safe to exceed the natural power, as the udder-supply artery engorgement has limits, which are easily reached, and beyond which it is not safe to ex- periment in the way of increasing milk yield. When farrow cows do not come into heat at their usual season, while still continuing their usual yield, they should have their yield reduced, by taking less and less of their milk, if their breeding be desired, till coupling heat ap- pears. When, by steadily reducing their yield, they at length come into heat, this is the consequence of an in- crease of blood in the vessels contiguous to the ovaries. And this condition of heat can be induced earlier, by an earlier reduction of yield, and of blood supply to the milk glands, by which course the supply of blood to the region of the ovaries is increased. In this way farrow cows may resume breeding earlier, from earlier drying. In nearly all instances farrow cows are those that have been petted and fed with moist feed, or specially prepared mixtures well adapted to distend the digestive organs with food, and the udder-supply arteries with blood, and the 248 Cattle Problems. milk glands with milk; the over-distention in cither organ not being so extreme as that which culminates in abort- ment; but still the over-strain is sufficient in extent to cause partial relaxation of the udder-supply arteries. And this limited degree of weakening by over-distention and partial relaxation may be sufficient so prevent the neces- sary supply of blood and blood heat to the region of the ovaries, to bring on coupling fever. During a season of rest, contractility in the weakened arteries is partially regained, a sufficiency of blood again flows towards the ovaries to bring on coupling heat, in some cases, and breeding may be resumed. Thus the in- termitted breeding of farrow cows is accounted for by the occurrence of partial relaxation in the udder-supply ar- teries. CHAPTER XXVIII. FAILuRE oF Deep MiLkers. TO BREED. ft results from Chronic Relaxation of the Mammary Ar- leries. We have seen questions relating to the difficulty of dry- ing certain cows, generally deep milkers, and asking ad- vice through the agricultural press, in several instances ; and, also, numbers of such cows. They are scattered over the country, and consist, chiefly, of cows of large yield, that are dried up only with great difficulty ; and there are some cases in which such cows cannot be dried, without reducing their feed almost to starvation rations. In such cases it is quite clear the cows have lost control over their mammary blood flow; their udders are, most of them, re- laxed, while their udder-supply arteries are large in the ex- treme; and as certainly relaxed, because it is very evident they do not contract ; and therefore the blood-flow to the udder is not reduced, or diminishes but little, and slowly, and does not cease, as it does in cows that dry themselves by artery contraction while they are breeding. It is evi- dent, therefore, that those cows which cannot be dried early, and do not breed, are affected with chronic relaxa- tion in the arteries that supply the milk glands with the breeding blood ; the flow of which to the udder is not ar- rested. These cows of deep yield cannot be easily dried, be- cause the large size of their udder-supply arteries remains fixed by relaxation. The arteries cannot be closed at the 1 250 Cattle Problems. natural time, or in the natural way, however strong the in- stinctive or natural tendency of such cows to breed may be, because these arteries are incontractible, in conse- quence of being relaxed in the muscular tunics. The failure of such deep and long-yielding milkers to breed results, also, from the relaxation of their udder-sup- ply arteries. A certain but variable proportion of all the blood produced by digestion is required to nourish the cow’s individual system. Any surplus remaining is natu- rally breeding blood, provided for the breeding function. Continuing a large yield, long, but at the same time not breeding, nor coming into heat, is a certain indication of most of the breeding blood being conveyed to the milk glands ; and the reason of the continued flow in that di- rection, is that the arteries that supply the udder with blood do not contract ; not contracting because they are relaxed to such a degree that their contractile power is either much weakened or lost. Not having power to contract, or if any, not sufficient to cause such a supply of blood and blood heat, in the ovarian circulation, as is required to produce the accumu- lation of heat that causes coupling fever. The blood and heat supply in the ovarian vessels thus failing, the heat that would naturally bring on coupling does not appear, nor occur. So there is neither impregnation, nor the heat that leads to it, because the uterine circulation is reduced and delayed in such large degrees, by the continued large supply of blood, and its heat together, to the udder, as to render the providing of a sufficient quantity of blood and heat to give rise to the cestrum, is impracticable; hence the failure of deep milking cows to breed is directly due to reduced blood-supply in the uterine and ovarian circu- lation, and primarily to the relaxation of the udder-supply arteries at the greatly increased size that conveys so much Failure to Breed. O51 of the mammary blood to the milk-glands, that the supply to the ovarian vessels is too small to induce coupling. It is quite likely that these non-breeding deep milkers are, many of them, the same cows that previously bred only once or twice in alternate seasons. But this is not important, as they are permanently disabled as breeders when their udder arteries remain greatly relaxed. When deep milkers fail in breeding power from a single instance of engorgement of their udder-supply artery-tubes, the ex- pansion is extreme, and most likely takes place at or be- fore midsummer, when they are not pregnant; and also when the great abundance and juiciness of tempting grass feed leads to excessive consumption; the effect being a great increase in the bulk of blood produced, as is clearly evident by the doubling of the udder and artery-size in some of such cases, in the short period of 6 to 12 weeks in different cows. The extreme distention of the arteries that supply it at the time of maximum yield, is as great as that of the udder, and the painful effects of extreme dis- tention of the udder, when long continued, are frequently too evident to be disputed. And it is certain that great pain in such cases results from actual injury to the udder structure; the nature of the injury in the milk-glands probably being that of discohesion, from extreme tension, or overstrain, in the fibrous substance of the milk-glands. And this overstrain or extreme distention being increased or frequently repeated, probably leads, in some instances, to permanent relaxation in the milk-glands, also in the udder sack; and, at the same time, in the arteries that supply the udder with blood; the relaxation in each case being, of course, due to an over-supply of blood in the udder-supply arteries; the over-supply of blood in such cases being the result of rapid increase in feed, or over- feeding. The breeding arteries of cows are limited in their con- 2h? Cattle Problems. taining capacity, if their contractility is to he maintained, and unless artery contractility be maintained, breeding power must be impaired to the same extent that artery contractility is weakened or suspended. Contractility in the udder-supply arteries is the power by which cows dry themselves. It is, also, the power by which they are enabled to breed, by controlling their mammary blood-flow, and diverting it to the embryo, which would be impossible, without contractile power in the udder-supply arteries, that enables cows to carry on and to complete the process of embryonic breeding. When cows are advanced in age, as deep milkers usually are when they can no longer breed—breeding power being lost by chronic relaxation of their udder-supply arteries—their recuperative power is so much reduced that recovery of breeding power cannot be reasonably ex- pected. And, perhaps, no better course can be pursued than to dry them by reducing their supply of water, by reducing the moisture in feed, or in any way, to a mini- mum allowance, and fattening them after they become dry. Such cases are not very numerous; still it is desirable to reduce their number, which will become less, when the cause and origin of the trouble is better understood, tu aid in which these explanations are made. CHAPTER XXIX, ALTERNATE MILKING AND BREEDING WITH Cows, Maintaining Large Yield by Selection and Inheritance. The size of milk cows generally is small, and in the dairy localities and districts—excepting some old home- raised herds, or families of cows—the size is not much larger; as mostly the wew dairy herds are formed by gathering up such cows as may be for sale, in the non- dairying parts of the country. A chief reason why many cows are small is: They are raised from small calves; and as calves are the dasement story upon which the future cow is built, the size of the cow ultimately corresponds with her previous size as a calf. Small calves are chiefly the result of dwarfed growth in the embryo, previous to its birth and breathing as a calf. The cow race can be continued in no other way than by breeding. Milk itself originates in the last stages of the breeding process, and is provided to continue the breed, by maintaining the calf till it becomes able to gather its own subsistence. Mam- mary or udder-supply blood is produced and conveyed to the udder to provide milk for maintaining the calf; and, being a sfectal supply for supplying the demand of the offspring, the blood from which milk is formed may cor- rectly be called dreeding blood. The ovarian and uterine blood-supply, provided to sustain the ante-pregnant and embryo stages of breeding, is also breeding blood; and the effective cause of calves being small is: The supply of breeding blood to the embryo is so small that it cannot grow fast or become large, and therefore makes only a 254 Cattle Problems. small extent of growth, or a dwarfed size, according to the small supply of nutrition it receives. As the embryo cannot make growth without breeding blood, its extent of growth can only be in proportion to its supply of nutri- ment. Digestive power is limited by two conditions: First, by extent of space or size of the stomach and ali- mentary canal to contain the crude substances that supply the crude material of blood. Second, by the quantity of digestive or solvent fluids which, being derived from the blood, cannot exceed their natural proportion to the quan- tity of blood supplying them. The quantity of blood de- rived from a given amount of feed cannot exceed the quantity of blood elements, the use of which depends on the digestive power, which varies according to the mus- cular vigor and extent of exercise and éreathing. The total blood supply is according to two sources of natural demand: First, to nourish the system of the cow; and, second, to develop and maintain the three breeding stages or processes aforesaid. The instances are exceptional and few in which cows produce more blood than is required to nourish their own systems, and also to continue their kind, by providing blood and blood heat, and to supply blood nutrition during the preparatory and embryo breed- ing processes; and to form milk also to continue the em- bryo growth in that of the calf. And it is certain that embryos can and do in very many cases receive and or- ganize adZ the breeding blood—all that residue which is not used in nourishing the cow’s system; and afterward, as calves, consume all the mother cow’s milk.* When embryo calves receive all the breeding blood—as when pregnant cows are not milked—they grow much larger, according to their larger supply of nutrition, be- * Some Short-horn breeders, tnderstanding this fact, have for generations allowed numbers of their cows to suckle their own calves ; and, in some cages, two common cows supply one Short-horn calf, Milking and Breeding. 255 fore full term, than the calves of cows that are milked either close or late during their pregnancy. And when calves get all the cow’s milk, as in many thousands of instances in the cattle-breeding sections of the West and far West, they grow as large in six months as average- yearlings in dairy sections, and in States further East and North,* which clearly shows that less than full nutrition does not make full-sized calves. We call attention to these fundamental facts to show why cows are generally small, namely: Because their breeding blood is divided between two opposing demands, satisfying neither in full. Half the breeding blood can only make half-sized}+ em- bryos and calves, through the supply of the placenta or the udder. And small or only half-sized calves can rarely develop into good-sized cows. In brief, the size or ex- tent of calf-growth is certainly limited to the extent of calf-nutrition, and small calves make small cows; and so cows become small from limited supplies of nutrition and limited growth in their embryo and calf forms, or during their earliest stages of life. True, some small cows yield much milk, but this is the result, in part, of inherited forms, and additional increase of such forms, by long-continued demand for milk at the udder, and long-continued distention of its supplying ar- teries aided by activity and good digestion. The pro- * On our own small stock farm, and others much larger, in Plymouth Co., Iowa, many such cases are met with. + Dr. Henry Tanner. Professor of Rural Economy, Queen’s College, Birm- ingham, England, says in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society: “The animals which breed with least difficulty yield the best supplies of milk, and produce the most healthy and vigorous offspring.” a Wa have suffered them to deteriorate in value as breeding animals by the de- crease of their milking capabilities.” * * ‘A short supply of milk is in- dicative of enfeebled breeding powers.”’ Prof. Tanner is incorrect in these statements, for milking pregnant cows withdraws the blood devoted to form- ing milk, from the support of the embryos, by diverting it to the udder, so eedhacitie the means of embryo nutrition, and lessening the power of cows to breed either vigorous or large calves. When any increase of blood is used to form milk, the products of digestion are diverted from the breeding organ. thereby weakening breeding power by withdrawing blood from the breeding process, the result in many cases being dwarfed calves or starved and aborted embryos. 256 Cattle Problems. portion or disproportion, the peculiar form of many cows of large yield, seen in their large hind quarters, is devel- oped gradually, and at the expense of their general growth during their heifer-hood, or growing years; as after full growth there can be no material increase in general size, nor much change in their form of frame. We may explain a little further the origin of large hind quarters, and large udder. The increased size in the hind quarters of itself shows that large yield, by small cows, is at the expense of their general growth, as the full natural size and proportion of the fore quarters would be main- tained, if the blood-supply and its nutrition were there in their full, natural proportion. But limited digestion can- not supply unlimited demand; the demand at the pail be- ing unlimited, while the natural demand in the fore quar- ter, or half of the cow, for blood nutrition, is evidently not fully supplied. The larger size in the hind quarters of milk cows of any size, but met with mainly in middle-sized cows, with large udders that yield well, is due primarily and principally to hand-milking, which, with special supplies of.similar feed, enlarges the milk yield. As continued yield evidently results from special feed, and demand at the pail, we confine ourselves to interme- diate results :— 1. Increase of feed leads to increase in the bulk of blood from which milk is formed ; and the increase of blood is in the same degree that the bulk of milk-yield is increased to, both results, of course, being according to increase of feed and its digestion. ‘To save labor and time in milking, the udder and glands have long been used for the temporary storage of milk, in semi-daily supplies; the twelve-hour yield being stored in the udder, and taken at one milking, instead of being drawn at four or five times by the calf. When drained by the calf, the udder is kept small and Milking and Breeding. 257 undistended, and remains of small size. But by long con- tinued storage of a twelve-hour yield, the natural small size of the udder has been greatly expanded and enlarged. And since the commercial demand for milk products led to the increased demand for milk, special dairymen have largely increased the size of the udder, by increasing the yield of their cows. This illustrates the expansive effect of milk, and its pressure on the size of the udder, asa store tank or reservoir. Now as to enlargement in the hind quarters: The blood is continuously forming by digestion, being colored and completed vitally by breathing. The rate of blood pro- duction varies with the rates of breathing and nutrition; and blood production constantly continues in a less or greater degree, the tissues of the cow receiving their nu- tritive supply continually. But the blood that supplies the udder is not constantly in use, and flowing like that which nourishes the tissues of the cow. The milk-glands receive blood and form milk at certain seasons only. After calving, a large increase of blood takes place in the udder- supply arteries from which the milk-glands regularly re- ceive their supplies. The milk-glands admit the milk-form- ing blood till they are full; there is then a back-setting process, by which the arteries are further distended in size. They are also increased in length to some extent, and in the extent of their convolutions and ramifications; and probably also in the number of their smaller branches. In this way the concurring effect from increase of blood and milk storage in the udder, is to increase the tubular or containing capacity of the udder-supply arteries as much beyond the natural, or previous size, as the yield of milk and the size of the milk-glands and udder are increased ; the enlarged supply of blood for forming milk necessarily requiring an equal increase in the artery space, which it fills and occupies, previous to passing to the milk-glands. 258 Cattle Problems. There is a large venous proportion of blood that does not enter the udder ; but this also temporarily fills artery space ; and it is safe to say that the space filled and occupied by the mammary artery-blood is increased generally as much or more than yield is increased. And when yield is grad- ually increased, during three or four years in heifers, and so on through several generations of their successors, a very evident increase in the size of the hind quarter results from the increased extent of space filled by the increased blood- supply; and increased ramifications and size of the arteries containing it, previous to its entering the udder. In the embryo the circulation commences before the formation of the frame, to convey the frame-forming ma- terial. But in heifers, or young cows, previous to maturity, the increased extent of the artery tubes, and of the fluid and solid substances within them, gradually expand the di- mensions of the frame-work and size in the hind quarters, and at the same time the length, size, and strength of the bony frame and its connections are correspondingly in- creased by nutrition, from the general circulation. So special demand at the udder leads to large increase in the contents or substances of the correspondingly in- creased space occupied by the mammary arteries and their contents; thus expanding the general size or dimensions of the hind quarters, and so contributing to establish large yield by forming—in effect—a blood reservoir near the udder. It requires constant perseverance, in careful feeding and close milking, continued through several generations of heifer cows, to develop and establish the best forms, found in milking families of good cows ; and it being de- sirable to establish them, it is equally desirable to continue them by descent and inheritance, which is practicable, as experience has demonstrated in establishing such forms in various families of cows. Milking and Breeding. 259 With the vast expansion in dairying, many more good cows are required than are or can be produced by the hap-hazard general practice of breeding indiscriminately alike from good, bad, and indifferent animals. Experience shows that general farmers, or non-profes- sional cow-breeders, certainly will not breed the best class of milk cows, and if they accidentally obtain such a cow, or family, they either demand very high prices, or keep them as family favorites. It therefore devolves upon dairy- men and breeders to supply such cows, if they are to be bred or multiplied ; as certainly is required, in consider- able numbers. Dairymen and breeders own many of the best cows that are available, for special selection to breed from. A lim- ited number may be obtained by good judges, from gen- eral farmers, for beginning such herds. But—to repeat— milking pregnant cows, is strongly adverse to their most successful breeding ; for, as before shown, the largest and most profitable embryos and calves are, and necessarily must continue to be, produced by devoting all the breed- ing blood of breeding cows to its natural purpose, which is forming increase in the embryo growth, and calf-size, according to increase in production of blood and milk. On the contrary, breeding reduces the supply of blood to the udder; the entire milk-yield being formed, not from the general circulation, but from the mammary sup- ply of the breeding blood arteries. It follows that full, or good success in obtaining large yield, and breeding full-sized calves, while milking preg- nant cows, is impracticable and impossible. Besides insuring successors of large yield, a great saving of labor must result from keeping only good cows. And the saving of labor is an equivalent of profit. Two good cows yield more profit than three poor ones; besides 260 Cattle Problems. which, the hap-hazard practice of breeding is neither scientific, systematic, nor progressive. Good but small families of milking cows have been established in numbers of instances, at times, in different parts of the country, showing that it is practicable. But while most breeds of cattle supply cows of good form, the question of breed is not particularly involved, as the right form of organization, and thenecessary yield-basis of good digestion, are the necessary conditions required in cows for large yield; and two-thirds of the time occupied in gradually establishing a small milking family can be saved by breeding from cows that already have good yielding capacity. There are several methods by which cows of good yield and form can be employed to breed a much larger succes- sion of similar cows than is now extant: First, either small or large herds of good cows can be divided,* and each half used in alternate years, one-half for breeding and the other half for milking. Or, if a smaller propor- tion or number will keep up the numbers of the herd, one-third of the cows can be bred from each year, another third succeeding them the next season, and so on, which would employ all the good cows of each herd one-third of the time, or one season in three; this method affording time for the breeding organs to rest and recuperate during the milking season or seasons, and resting the parts imme- diately accessory to milk-yield during the breeding terms, which would certainly be beneficial to the milking and breeding powers of the cows. Modifications of this system are practicable. For in- stance: Well-formed heifers can be employed for milking three or four years to increase their capacity, and the pe- culiar form which in most instances co-exists with large * By the use of barbed wire, which we know will make efficient cattle fences, the cost of fencing being very light. Milking and Breeding. 261 yield. By the sixth or seventh year, with suitable feed and care, full milk-production will be reached, as then the size being full, becomes fixed, and the capacity which size gives can no longer be increased, with rare exceptions, in which cases the breeding power* is sometimes suspended or destroyed. After maturity the cows can be used alter- nately for breeding and milk-yield, as long as their yield is profitable. Men of large means and facilities can divide their herds between dairying and breeding, which affords good facili- ties for raising the calves from the best cows, by employ- ing light milkers to suckle them, as repeatedly is done.} In fact, there is no reason why the breeding of dairy cows should not become a special pursuit in this way, or by some modified system. For instance, breeders who prefer that business, might carry on their art incheese-dairy districts, and select good calves from the dest cows of dairy herds— many good calves being destroyed—and raise them for use as dairy cows, with their light-yielding cows, which are many of them very good breeders, in this way giving dairy- men the use of their cows soon after calving. We briefly suggest, being firmly convinced: First, that breeding and milking cannot be most profitably or successfully carried on at the same time with the same cows. Second, that it is desirable and practicable to breed milk cows from those of established yield and good form. ‘Third, that this can be most successfully accomplished by some system of alternate milking and breeding, with known good cows. Fourth, breeding should be the special business of cows, for the time being, to prevent a reduction in their size and capac- ity; size with muscle being the measure of power, whether for breeding or milk. Full size in cows is maintainable only by raising full-sized calves. And the acquired do- * Read chapter on Farrow Cows. + Short-horn and other breeders understand this practically. 262 Cattle Problems. cility of the best cows is not an unimportant characteristic to secure by inheritance, where so much handling is neces- sary. In conclusion, it is certain that selection is but little practiced, and that multitudes of inferior cows are used for milking, because the supply of cows of good capacity and form for milk-yield is very much less than the demand. It is also evident that the demand for good cows can never be supplied by the present hap-hazard, take-them-as- they-run practice of forming many dairy herds; and it would be certainly profitable in several ways to introduce improved methods in breeding cows, in consistency with what has already been done in the many improved methods of treating the numerous and various products of the milk that the food and breeding processes in cows necessarily produce. CHAPTER XXX. EXAMPLES OF LARGE YIELD, AND Howir 1s Propucen, Practical Suggestions on Handling Feed, and Training. Much has been, and will continue to be said and writ- ten about the influence or indications of points, and forms, and breed in milk cows, but the general conditions of ac- tivity, feed, and climate in which they are raised, control the general size and digestive capacity of cattle. And cows that develop more than average capacity, either as breed- ers, or feeders, in any set of conditions, are there the best cows. The naturally developed capacity is the foundation or origin of excellence in all our domestic animals. And this natural excellence being noticed, the animals showing it are selected to breed from; and this is the origin of small families of cows, some of which multiply into exten- sive breeds, and take their name generally from the coun- try or locality in which they are first selected. Hence it is clear that name or distinction of breed has no influence on the peculiar growth which gives peculiar capacity; as good form and capacity depend upon exercise, or training, more than on inheritance. Special training, for instance, originates peculiar form, as large hind quarters, in most cows of large yield, and the form cannot be maintained by inheritance, unless the training, that originated it be also coutinued. Large hind quarters having been alluded to, we may say that they appear principally in cows of moderate or small size, that yield well; and result from a general in- crease of blood, and in the size, length, and convolutions 254 Cattle Problems. of the blood-ves.cls in the hind quarters; through a num- ber of years, or Guring several gencrations, perhaps, if the feed and close milking giving rise to this tenclency be continued, the increase in bulk of blood and blood-vessels occupying an increased space; the blood being thus in- creased in the hind-quarter region, ready to supply the milk-glands. Thus the blood-flow toward the udder enlarges the mus- cular extent and vascularity of the hind quarters, which naturally leads to increase in frame growth, to support the augmented bulk and weight of blood, blood-vessels and muscle, and other augmented substances, in the larger hind-quarter growth.* And it is apparent that large frame growth, and depth in the hind quarters —whether the fore- quarter growth corresponds or not—is important in the form of milk cows, as without the necessary space in prox- imity to the udder, for containing a large supply of blood, the necessary quantity of blood to supply a large yield cannot be present near the udder. It may be that strong breeding instinct, which through the nerves certainly con- trols the blood-flow in certain parts, as in drying up the udder by diverting blood to the embryo, induces a larger flow of blood to the vessels of the hind quarters. Be this as it may, the blood must occupy space, and when near the udder, is available for increasing milk-yield. A large net-work of blood-vessels in the upper twist shows that, in such instances, there is much blood in the vicinity of the udder. We must repeat here some remarks on form, and other points. A light head, neck, tail, and bones, in- dicate a light demand for blood in these parts, leaving a larger surplus than if such parts were large, to increase the milk-yield. This is their signification, instead of the mys- tical influence that some writers and cattle dealers ascribe to them. A narrow face generally accompanies a long, narrow Producing Large Yield. 65 form of body; but this form—popular with some—is a sign of weak muscles and weak digestive power; the di- gestive power depending much on muscular action, from inlet to outlet, and being weak or strong according to the strength or weakness of the muscles generally. The muscles of the top ends of the ribs are frequently weak in such cases, causing flat sides from the weight of the abdo- men, constantly drawing the lower ends of the ribs in- ward, thus causing flat sides. The whole muscular sys- tem in tall, narrow-faced, flat-sided cows is weak, as shown in their languid movements and dragging gait. A vound- bodied, open-faced, comfortable-looking cow, with good- sized hind quarters, and a springing, lively step, is a good form of cow of any size, because she has the indications of large digestive power. As several English and American writers, and others, attach much importance to looseness of the skin over the hip bones, and upper back ribs, it may be explained that when the skin is not tight here, it must be loose and movable generally, as the great weight of a large belly draws the skin down more and tighter over these bones than on any less projecting parts. Hence, if the skin be mellow and easily lifted over these bones, it must be gen- erally mellow and movable. To the foregoing add a coat of thick, fine hair, and a skin that is medium, or thick, according to previous exposure, with a good sized yteld-mark—no matter what its form, so that it be large— and we have the general form and indications of a good cow, whatever the name of her breed may be. The right form results from the influence of feed and training ; and, though transmissible, it can only be main- tained bysuitable feed, training, and care. A pleasant ex- pression in face and eye is the index of good temper, which can only be maintained by such care and kindness 18 266 Cattle Problems. as develop affection toward the attendant. Yes, affec- tionate attachment, ye machine men. Comfort promotes good digestion, and tends to increase yield. Caressing, comfort, and care, as well as feed, having had each its share of influence in developing large yield, as is fre- quently witnessed, and as was long ago shown in the train- ing of the Netherland cows of Western Europe, now at- tracting great attention from American dairymen. The Netherland, or Holstcin-Dutch cows are a large breed, and large in their yielding capacity. They are bred in various parts of the low-coast country, with unimportant differences in color, etc., from Holland to Denmark. For- merly breeds of cattle in North America were mainly de- rived from the British Islands; and the cattle of that country were derived, previously, from Western Europe, where dairying is an ancient art, thus indicating that the Netherland cows, generally, are the oldest well-known dairy breeds. It follows that their milking capacity, which varies as in other cows, with locality and treatment, has been longer continued, and is more fixed, as far as fixing a suitable organization is concerned, than in any other known dairy cows. The form of the Holsteins, or Dutch cows, how- ever, is ot perfect, nor the best for pasturing in hilly or undulating localities. They are rather too tall, standing higher, for instance, than the Herefords or Galloways, or than the best common cows. They are not round enough in body, as whatever may have been said about double cubes for beef, and wedge-shaped cows for milk, a round- formed cow is the most vigorous from superior muscu- larity, and has better digestive power, producing more blood, with a better form for economizing heat, and a larger body-surface compared with her weight, than tall and somewhat flat-sided cows. And roundish-bodied cows will yield more when their hind quarters are large, other Producing Large Yield. 267 things being equal, than those that are less round in form. The flat-side form is developed on comparatively level surfaces, where there is but little side-strain on the mus- cles, while the round form is developed where the surfaces are undulating ; the reasons for which are given in another place,* as we have here to trace out several of the leading influences that have established larger yield in the Hol- steins and similar Netherland cows. First, the atmosphere of the Netherlands is very moist, containing much watery vapor, the natural moisture of the air entering into the composition of all roots and grasses grown there, in a larger degree than takes place in dry climates. In this way the feed is made more succulent, as well as more bulky, than the more concentrated feed produced in dry climates; thus leading to a larger bulk of blood, in supplying an equal extent of nutrition in their feed to the cows. For this reason, the bulk of blood formed, and the bulk of yield derived from it, is greater in cows raised in moist climates, than in those raised in dry climates. This is one source of greater quantity in their yield. The greater amount of watery vapor in the atmosphere, together with the greater amount of moisture in the soil, also causes a much larger proportion of moisture, probably amounting to several thousand gallons a year, to enter the blood of a cow by way of the lungs, as watery vapor in the air she breathes; which is another source of increase in bulk of blood, and one that is much less available in dry climates. Both those influences have their share in making up bulk in the yield of cows in moist climates. There be- ing alarger bulk of blood, to nutritive value, the excess of bulk from excess of moisture leads to increase in the size of the arteries, and the total quantity of blood enter- ing the tissues, and in the vessels of the entire circulation, *In remarks on California Short-horns, 268 Cattle Problems. which accounts for considerable excess in bulk of yield generally in the Netherland country cows. Selection of the best, which are generally most petted in feeding, also had its share in collecting and concentrat- ing the best herds of cows, in the best natural grass dis- tricts, where, of course, dairying becomes most extensive and concentrated in any country. The great industry, pains-taking care, and close economy of the people in the Netherlands, in the management and training of their cows, has much increased their yield, the cows being milked very close, the demand for milk being alway greater than the supply. This practice tends to de- velop the largest yield that can be made, without reducing flesh. Add to this, their pasturing in the night time, and blanketing to prevent loss of blood-heat by evaporation, and we have quite an effective series of influences contrib- uting to increased bulk in the yield of Netherland or Hol- steins, and Dutch cows. And the long succession of gen- erations through which these influences have operated, has led to the large size in the hind quarters, and arteries, and inthe udder and yield-marks, to correspond, being more fixed, by long use, and inheritance, than in any other example, or country, in so many cows. Considering the more watery and less nutritive quality of the native feed in the low-coast country, we should of course expect the Netherland cows to be more remarkable for the quantity, than the quality of their yield, according to the distensive influences already stated. Cows that have large digestive organs and artery sys- tems will supply as much, and richer milk, when a richer quality of feed of equal bulk is supplied to them. But this will not, in this country, generally -be done, in all probability ; hence some reduction in yield, in our dry climate, by imported cows of this breed, and in their de- scendants, is probable, Producing Large Yield. 269 We believe bulk of yield can, however, be maintained in these cows, and developed orfincreased in others most effectually by a continued supply of moist or succulent feed, because this is consistent with the causes that have led to the large yield in the cows of Holland and Hol- stein. The same is also true, to a considerable extent, of Ayr- shire cows, the county of Ayr being low, and having a humid atmosphere, thus supplying similar influences, lead- ing to large yield in this neat dairy breed. We believe that in good grass latitudes, the grass of low moist soils will be generally found to produce the largest yield in cows of any breed ; the quality of yield being a different question from that of its bulk or quantity. From what we have seen in many instances, in devel. oping large yield, the use of thick slops tends strongly in that direction. The several stomachs of the cow afford large space for bulk and digestive action; and this shows that bulk is required in their feed; and in the best old dairy districts, the feed and air have a large share of moisture in their composition. Hence the view that bulk may best be increased by increasing the proportion of moisture in the food of cows, from which bulk or quantity of yield is derived. The moist consistency of the solid droppings of cows, compared with those of horses, swine, and sheep, seems to _agree with this view ; certainly it shows that in cows the contents of the bowels are much diluted with moisture. How best to accomplish this object, with a view to in- creasing yield, is a practical question for cow keepers. We consider it very important, however, that the mixture of the moisture with the solid parts of the food be as inti- mate as practicable. This intimate mixture is the reason why succulent root-food, such as bagas, beets, and carrots, promote health and thrift, by diluting drier feed in the 270 Cattle Problems. stomach and bowels. Of course succulent grass needs no addition of moisture, but in the fall and winter, the feed of cows, in milk, should be brought as near to the consist- ency of grass, as practicable by the infusion of moisture. In feeding cheap grain, or corn, we should prefer to grind rather fine, and mix the meal with chopped hay. First steep the hay or chaff in warm water for a short time ; then drain off the moisture, and put chaff in man- ger, and then sprinkle on the meal. The reason for using warm water is that it is absorbed more rapidly. Feed should be cool when fed. In bringing chaff or any other dry feed to the consist- ency of grass, slow steaming is a good method, and need not be costly. We should prefer hay to short chaff, as hay must be masticated, which is important in changing starch to sugar, and in preparing food for close digestion. Meal sticks to and mixes with damp feed. Some cows may be able to dilute their dry food to a moist consist- ency by drinking water at the right “me; but frequently they do not get water when it is most required. If the moisture be supplied in the food, there can be no loss in yield from want of moisture to increase the solvency of the food. There is so great a demand for cows of large sed? that if a7 the good cows in the Netherland country were ob- tained, they would not supply it. Hence we are endeay- oring to show how good milkers are produced. Much effort in feeding to increase yield is being made. Indeed, in Illinois they are talking about raising the yield to 6,000 or 7,000 lbs. of milk per cow in a season. Dr. Tefft, of Elgin, is said to have had a cow—in 1879—that yielded 12,000 lbs. of milk in one, and 11,000 lbs. in another season. This indicates an engorging excess in blood and yield, that results from treating the cows as though they were machines. We expect several conse- Producing Large Yield. 271 quences to result from this policy. The breeding power of cows forced to such monstrous yields will be certainly destroyed in many cases. The dairymen will be unable to keep up such vast yields, because they lose the use, as breeders, of their best cows. Many of the cows will soon be worn out, and, at length, over-sanguine dairymen will come to be satisfied with a yield equal to that of the best cows in the moister climates of Europe, say with 4,000 Ibs. of milk per cow in a season, Home-bred cows must be mainly relied on for the dairy, because there is no other source that can supply the vast and increasing demand. Home-bred animals have the advantage of being already acclimated, as well as being accustomed to the dryer feed of our inland climates. We have seen many single cows of very profitable yield, and numbers of small families of like character, in different North-western States. And there are many instances of the kind the country over, showing that American home resources are of suitable character. And this is as true of feed as of cows. There are hundreds of specimens of the poor man’s cow which have developed large yield from very simple treatment, with only limited facilities, the ¢razmng and care being similar to that which, as we have explained, produced the best cows in Western Europe or in North Britain.* As to quality of food necessary to produce milk, it is established that fatty or oily feed is zo¢ the most favorable for that purpose. One reason against fatty feed is:— The fat of milk is formed by the transformation of other and different substances—the nitrogenous proteids—by cell- * An unfailing test of an easy milker is fla¢ ends in the teats. Cows hav- ing flat-ended teats milk easy, the outlet being large; those having pointed ends to their teats milk hard, because the outlet is small, and much squeez- ing is required to force out the milk. + See Foster’s Physiology, p. 301. 272 Cattle Problems. action in the milk-glands, while if the fat of milk were supplied ready formed, there would be no transformation required in producing fat in the milk. Sweet feed, such as sugar cane, is not safe, because too much sugar—as shown by Prof. Tanner, of England—en- dangers the breeding power. Experience shows that grass, either green and succulent, or dried, is the best and_there- fore the standard milk-producing feed. Clover, from its containing much nitrogenous matter, is also very good for milk. Taking the composition of grass for a standard, it can be readily ascertained which kinds of feed approxi- mate it in their quality. Millets, if cut and cured when green, may be available to increase the supply of fall and winter feed. Of all the auxiliary food, corn fodder, both when green, and when dry, is probably the best and most economical. We have repeatedly used it green for feed- ing swine in hot weather; and cows relish it exceedingly, consuming it also with avidity after it is dry. In all or- dinary seasons and soils, and in most parts of this conti- nent, corn fodder can be raised in abundance, and cured in small shocks. And then the shocks can be made large, and when well made and tied, they can stand in the field all the winter, ready for use, without danger of spoiling the fodder. But corn-stalk sap contains so much saccharine matter that fermentation and moulding very soon occur, when it is stacked or housed in much quantity; so it is best not to stack it, but to keep it in large shocks of ten to fifteen bundles each zz the field, in the North-western States. In regard to quantity of yield, that quantity which can be made while maintaining the strongest digestive power is most economical for any cow or dairyman. The quantity of milk-forming ingredients, or elements, in food of any kind, is limited, and cannot be increased by the digestive or milk-forming processes. A certain ex- Producing Large Yield. 273 tent of digestive and milk-forming power will transform the milk constituents from a certain quantity of feed. Hence two cows cannot make any more milk from an acre of grass or a ton of hay than three cows can produce from the same amount. If ten bushels of wheat will produce only 42 lbs. of flour per bushel, no more can be got from it by grinding it with two pairs of stones, than by grinding it with three sets. Hence, as far as cost and quantity of feed are involved, no particular advantage ap- pears in immoderate yield. No particular reason appears why a ton of hay will not supply as much milk by feeding it to three cows yielding four gallons each, as when fed to two cows yielding six gallons each. A man with only room enough for one cow might prefer a six-gallon yield on that account. But, of course, providing there is sufficient room for a greater number of cows, we do not see why cows of moderate size and yield cannot get as much milk out of any size of pasture, or any known quantity of hay or other. feed, as cows of very large yield. On the other hand there are certain objections to im- moderate yield. Over-feeding weakens digestive power and brings on dyspepsia in cows. Digestion is the basis of yield, and much milk-forming material is left in the drop- pings, when digestive power is much impaired by over- feeding, to induce excessive yield. Breeding power is also weakened in many cases, or sus- pended, as we see in farrow cows ;* in other cases, breed- ing power is entirely destroyed; thus destroying or im- pairing the value of good cows, for breeding successors. It is also difficult to dry cows whose breeding power is weak- ened, and they are slow and unprofitable in fattening. When pregnant cows dry up their yield readily, at the proper time, and breed large calves, their yield is not ex- cessive. But if they dry up very slowly, and breed small * See chapters on Farrow ( ows and ‘‘Deep Milkers.” 274 Cattle Problems. calves, their breeding power is impaired by previous over- feeding, and excessive yield, or its incidental consequences. On the whole Senecas motto, ‘*A medium course is the best,’’ is good. It is also true that ‘‘ haste makes waste,’’ for instance in increasing feed and yield too rapidly. And, as no more milk can be formed from feed—plus water— than its milk-forming elements can supply; cows of fair yicld, for their size, can supply as much value in milk, and more in other ways, without risk of loss, and maintain their value and yield permanently ; but this result is not attainable with immoderate yield or weakened digestion. As cows become attached to kind attendants, it is not best to change these, or ‘‘swap horses’? during the milk- ing season. And there is probably no better way to ob- tain a full and enduring milk-supply, than by selecting roundish, active, comfortable looking cows, full or large in their hind quarters ; and then do good, and have mercy, z. ¢., handle the cows tenderly, and carefully ; feed them moderately, and regularly, with suitable feed; and increase feed and yield only a very gradually ; sheltering the cows from extreme cold and wet, and giving them regular, moderate exercise to develop yield, and maintain appetite and digestive power ; so preserving the value of the cows for breeding, for beef, or for milk, while securing a per- manent and profitable yield of sound milk for the pail. GENERAL INDEX. PaagE. Abortion : ia in cows.. 191 in heifers . se 210) in dry-feed ‘season < a 221 not epidemic ........... .... 222 Abortions few in West. Europe.. 214 Aborting cows may raise calves. 241 Activity and meat-quality in cat- tle; in sheep; in deer; in poultry; in fish ........... strengthens digestion ... prevents waste of muscle . : 133 develops heat in horses. . 94, 95 Affection for attendants. . Le RUG Alderney cattle are light- muscled 134 as pets; for soiling i in small herds...... DLC CA COMy.s < irestecsisiciscniscooeraye Alternate milking and breeding. a ANIMAL OdOTSy 3 ses 2% 3 Seasieiete weiss 186 Ancestry of improved cattle, and combining qualities....... 186 A medium course is best.. » 24 Arteries abruptly expanded. . 200 Artery contraction anecessity 194, 201 engorgement the cause o f ADOTHOM cose ciessane ¥assieinaes ion 194 relaxation in practice ....... 214 Ayrshire cattle, and climate. sR eis Bi eateinale areceus 129, 130, 269 A reservoir bear the udder...... 264 A safe rate of increase in yield.. 210 A two-fold demand for mam- MAry DlOOd wsiecsiceevewe dex G1 Bacteria, and organic poison .... 161 do not grow in sound blood.. 162 Balfour Stewart on utilizing grass 182 Bastard cows, so called.......... 31 Best grass districts for dairying. 22 Blood, and its use in DreeHing, 59, 60 becomes poisonous...... 157, 158 . heat and coupling fever like discharges.. * 336 quality, and breeding power, 121 Body size, and size of mold..... 150 Breathing reduced by cen ment and repose .......... 165 completes the blood.. -- 116 gives life to the blood. oe 117 Breeding and milking in conflict 259 not insured by isolation..... 230 Pace. Breeding power and sterility 115, 116 from vigorous stock....... 87 Breech growth varies in cows, 37, _ Brood mares are exercised ..... Bright eyes and fine hair . 4 @ Bulk in food aids digestion . Staats 148 in blood and size in vessels, in air cells, and lungs, 148, 149 in food, and size incattle..... 150 California short-horns........... 133 DNEW, OPECO saciny vwwcorampaas 101 Calves color their own blood .... 118 the basement-story of cows. 253 Capacity of the udder........... 26 Cardinal rule in breeding ‘ Caressing and comfort... Care of Netherland cows Cattle for western ranges .. .... chilled by confinement ...... 170 Cause of Yield Mark demon- Strate weiss scccine aoe see of flat sides.s..+ ot oe neck, and tender- ee pee ree 3 lamer cattle to better condi- HONS svcrawcas. ens anes Changes in Short-horns ......... 133 Changing the direction of mam- Mary DlOGd ss cae saysrereoas 202 Character of Devon cattle....... 187 Cholera in hogs...........4. 160, 161 Commercial demand for blood PRODUCES \sciuinae Sar atees ties Corrugations in the twist skin... 49 Cows mark but one calfayear.. 72 Chronic relaxation of the udder- supply arteries ....... 208, 204 Circulation during hibernation... 165 Clusters of abortions together... 222 Colling and Bates’ infusions .... 111 Composition of milk ............ 40 Contraction and blood-flow...... 164 Cows feel the embryo’s hunger.. 63 trausniit their peculiar marks —this not understood by Guenon . - 69 Cow-calves, and the Yield Mark 72 Corn, fodder, clover, and millet, 272 Crossing on Jerseys and Guern- BEY, susersaes Sib Susielets cuscareaie sas 111 276 Page. Dairymen can prevent abortion.. 244 Dairy districts in West. Europe. 23 Danger of rapid increase in blood rhap feravsiaistetetatatara arate ot 209, 210 Dark-colored beef. . 83 Deficient skin-heat causes ten- GETHC RS excesses te siyet 89, 90 Degrees of artery cngorgement.. sev atau eu ogre 211, 212 Developing food-value from BUSS scenes verses ase 182, 183 Difference in color of skin....... 82 Digestion and blood- supply. 254 Digestive power limited 254 Digestion and vigor in muscular COT ev esses cig tintesenisreesncornle 6 Dr. Lucas on inheritance........ 70 Drying enables cows to breed... 63 Dry feed reduces the blood...... 65 Duration of yield according to GUOTNEL EY oa... sicis siaraie croissas terse 65 Early and late abortions......... 219 Effects of confinement in cows.. aussi jegausisicsnpoaishdsiinnties, 158, 159 of inactivity in swine... 168, 169 of feeding roots............. 81 Engorgement 1 relaxes the uterine arteries...........ceeceee ss Enlargement of the Yield Mark. Examples of large yield......... Exemption of farms, herds, and LOCI eg iss:ccaceess es 220, 223 Exercise causés sound blood.... develops warmth.. and good handling . and good quality of po . Denetits producers and con- SWUIMETS iiyanis: seaioceesa sia wiisiosars soxciara 190 to prevent lung plagne...... 159 prevents loss of muscle ..... 174 prevents muscles wasting... 176 Exhalation expels blood poisons 157 Extent of reduction in cow’s ex- CPCISC vies cncesisanessenea see 154 of Ln epie in exercise of 53, 154 of muscle depends upon ex- PLCS Ci. ice aioe a sasisianaces 1 Expansion of frame. . Aisebrinor COD) Evidences of embryo starvation. 22 Expired animal matter a virulent POMBOR iscsi cewsmacaa caress 155 Facts about muscle............65 189 Failure of aborting cows to breed, 230 of deep milkers to breed, 249, ae Faint Yield Marks inherited... Fancy, 2 cause of preference.... 76 Fat formed from other things, 41, 42 from reduction of muscle, 120 forming tendency increased. 122 obstructs circulation, ete .... i Fatty degencration of muscles .. 177 Feed aborting cows lightly...... pao General Index. Paae. Feeding ground grain and hay... 270 Fermentive changes in blood.... 163 Few abortions in Netherland cows—why they are —e . 214, 215 Fine hair and thriftiness........ 33 First cross success ; Short-horn grades; and other crosses rpdadies Siete a camterantesciag earls 105, 110 Food value contained in muscle- flesh, in cattle and hogs, aan” Form of cow for general use .... comes from training......... in Yield Mark and breech BLOW UD sad wrisernsaarndsragrs 52 Full feed to make large calves.. . 255 Galloway cattle; hornless cattle for handling. . -ee. 131, 132 Gland-weight and milk- -weight.. 21 Good cows to breed successors, 260 form of cow to select; and good care and digestion... 27. Grass, , the standard feed... 42, 273 Gravitation deepens the udder... 21 Grazing, a muscular function... 96 Great loss from waste of muscle see. 166, 167 Guenon’s classification examined ee ee 24, 25 second and sixth classes ex- plained .. 29, 30 mystification “caused doubt.. ' 34 other Classes, and minor MY SCOLIESB so -as ice meaverser corey 30 on. pus Yield Mark—escutch- cee abate as, Sh coctis 24, 25 he fails to sec ane we aioe MAE 00 ainsi . Bd, like a fisherman...... ss... 34 on duration of yield - 59 Handling points and qualities, 79, 265 Hap-hazard breeding a failure...’ 262 Heat or warmth from fuel....... 87 becomes warmth from mo- PROM cis ccicais aatarars quis aastocreigre supply according to exercise 95 Hereford cattle for bottom lands 101 are hardy; favorites in Eng- TAT scscrsisosaceneee- potarberz 133, 134 History of hand-milking ..... 17-20 Holding up the milk; instinct... 64 Holstein and Dutch cows.. 135, 136 Home-bred cows to be relied on 250 Hornless cattle convenient...... 102 Horses healthy, because active.. 170 How good forms are developed... 258 lung plague becomes con- TAOS. ss wei wesmemns ers muscles waste; and the nea 164 199, 200 artery elasticity is lost.. General Index. PAGE. How cows hold up their milk.... 38 milk is formed.............. 39 Immaturity in steers and heifers 138 Immediate cause of infertility,120, 121 Improving light-muscled short- RORDE o oeny os 35 sinscrewion Inactive cattle thin skinned. Increase of feed and blood...... in blood and artery size..... 197, 198, 207 in ‘breathing and blood.. 121, 122 in food value from exercise in nutrition and embryo BOWED a seis areas wacssrcinis aii in muscle and food value.... 173 of feed should be gradual 249, 243 Increased size in many hogs..... 168 Increasing fertility.......... =, 112 Indications of tenderness . 90 Index of maximum yield.. . 50 Infusions and dips .............. 107 ananenre of numaatt on feed and VLCUG ss ccacsce, = sie:0 ycin's ensas treces of bulk in feed, and lungs 146, 149 of bulk in alimentary canal.. ci 147, 149 Insipid’ quality’ of veal. see 140 Interior of the udder.......... 3 Intrinsic value from nutritive QUALI EY sci since screrasme vee 114 Jonas Webb; driving cows, and activity to increase fer- HHITEY.gcsese acejacie nies seine 120, 121 Kind treatment and good temper 78 Kyloe cattle ; their vigor; long COME OF NAIL: seasceissieige rues 131 Land pike hogs ..........-.+ 044. Large yield in Illinois 3 Law ot compensation. . é Less than half a-pint increase a year in yield. . Light-horns dad tail favor yield. os Limited elasticity in arteries 251, 252 Left side in two of Guenon’s CIABSEB. vczc cee ecw ee cers 28, 29 Local conditions give character.. 103 Lony Island hornless cows...... 102 Lung plague—by suffocation; great need of exercise, 152, 158 Loss of food value in cattle and OG Bie. ssssscaindic ees sedicinsaiarays 170, 171 of contractile power in ar- PELIC Boise cesscswcasniasd oases’ 225 Maintaining yield .............-. 269 Mammary blend is breeding blood 59 Male share in Yield Mark........ 69 marks inheritvd trom cow... 70 transmission of primary IGCTIN GG Seisiss panes easement 277 Pace. Males mark many calves in a BEABON: 1 ce siti qaiesiesaigarscts 72 Marbled beef not good........... 83 Mature beef at matur: age....... 145 Methods of alternate breeding 260, 261 Microscopic fungi .. wees QRS Milk-weight produces the Yield Mark; weight pr.ssure in the Udder ansces secs: ees 47, 48 yield accordi 65 DY secuseeh Moisture inthe Netherland ‘cli- mate; and feed 267 Muscle for labor power and food 185 in California short-horns....- 101 in herded Western cattle.... 183 reduced in various grades, 407-109 ng to blood sup- increased in grades...... 109, 110 strengthens breeding power. a wastes fron inactivity....... 119 eee contraction causes mo- yi . Monstrous Christmas cattle...... 122 Natural direction of the hair.... 46 a of exercise and vreath- ing use of the locomotive organs 190 Object of breeding cattle........ Objections to small heads ....... to immoderate yield......... Oily feed not best for milk a and soft, lustrous hair. Only half- work in half-tim: ie Ordinary causes of abortion, 193, 221 Origin of character in cattle, 126, 127 “of hand-milking.......... 19, 20 of the Yield Mark..... of large hind quarters... 68, 257 of ovals on the twist ..... 29, 32 of milking families. . avi, 04 Ovals in the Yield Mark Ovarian engorgement from abor- tion . 237 Over-distention ‘of the milk- So, 51 Practice of John D. Giitette," of Illinois Prefatory statement........... Prematurity in steers and heifers veseevee 138, 189 Preventing. abortion....... es... 242 Proportion of parts necessary... ine Present state transmitted........ Preventing hog cholera...... 161, ite 278 PAGE. Protcids go to form fat....... 41, 42 Prof. Tanner on breeding power, ‘255 Purifying blood hy bres thing. aon LAT Pucity Of LreCs csoas cece assess 113 Quality of milk like that of fued. 84 of milk for butter............ G7 in veal and becf......... 143, 1H Rapid growth, and poor quality.. 139 increase of yield in dairy cows HN HOM OHS. se, 25 x0 sais cae 216 Reason of wedge shape in cows.. 76 Reduced exercise in cows ....... Reduetion of blood dries the ud- MOI eis Gaia sawn saaa eet of muscle in short-' orns,.... 122 Relaxed udders diftienlt to dry... 43 Relaxing the udder skin...... 18-22 Resting cows that abort..... 239, 240 Reversed hair on buttocks... .... 32 Rich feed no cure for wasting TUS sess sie5 contesstues . 172 Rudimentary teats inherited. Safe rates of increase in feed and WOO sata xa cess uses ascended Seuetes 243 Saving muscle in fattening cattle 175 Scattering bunch grass, and cx- ercise in OPAAIN OY ica. aici-vonacs v7 Selecting and combining inal tieS veo. nie Selection and concentration. .... 286 Several demands for same blood 36 Size of cattle according to feed 98, 99 of organs according to use... 119 in Yield Mark; also form.... 26 Starvation of the embryo.... 194, 205 Slow feeding, and good quality... 141 Skins thicken in exposure....... 178 Specimens of the poor man’s cow 271 Suitable form in cows . G4 Superior meat quality ‘of active cattle and other animals... 179 Sure signs of casy milkers, and Hard MURS DS 65 seca 8e sons 271 Special breeding of Dairy cows. - 201 Small calyesmake small cows 2° 253, 255 Suffolk cattle... sens 182 Suggestions on shelter... .. 1... 102 System building caused doubt... 34 Table of rates of increase........ ree) Tenderness in cattle . ane, 90, 91 The calf’s breathing ‘colors i blood.. The Dalton i inquiry commission, 188 Thick skins to bear exposure, 9. General Index. Thick and full mnscles......... § Thin skinned cattle most tender. 92 Tight skin on hip-bones......... 9 The greater liability to second | abortions.. The irrepressible ‘conflict. . The lew of compensation. The large yield in dairy districts, 195 The sige of the udder, o: oi sasoys 39 The udder-supply arteries; heif- ers, and home- tained cows we os 212,213 The Brittany cattle. -- 103 The Yield Mar« explained. . 44 Too carly fattening and breed ng 138 Training and adaptation. ........ 78 Udder-supply artery engorge- ment leads to embryo star- MAUION tyes atessign aie etait 196 Unequal sides of the Yield Mark; strain of hand-milking .... 56 Uterine disorder eee breed- TNGias: 4 - 237 Various forms of Yield Mark.... 53 Vigor according to muscularity.. 96 important in the West....... 103 the reverse of plasticity ..... 104 Waste of muscle in fattening SUCCES Aa xs wheats naaniena anes 166 Weight strain in the udder....... 26 What cattle need least change... 103 Guenon did -. 28 When muscles Why artery walls remain thin... 20: embryo growthis arrested 219, 220 cows dry up their yield...... 63 cannot dry themselves. ...... milking conflicts with breed- UNS: aedesiesieteaits Apcieve 13'b Sis ES Short-horns increase in mus- cows abort. home-raised cows OXCINPL. cee cere cece eee ees abortions are few in old dairy CSUDLGUS:, 5. gieccse aunty eevee cs a milk is not red. . heifers abort ... Guenon’s system ‘failed, ..... ot Short-horns mature early.... 148 cattle are handled over the hips.. 2 an Where endurance is i SCR TN EA ape Tae EAS RHE