Cow
the adult female of the ox kind. The term has been extended to include many other, chiefly large animals, as the cow moose, cow whale, etc. A female calf is called a heifer. For some notion of the economic importance of the cow, see articles on BUTTER and CHEESE.
Our best dairy cows are obtained from particular districts of Europe. The brown Swiss, a middle-sized, small-boned, gentle cow with a black nose, tongue, hoofs, and tail, comes from Switzerland. Holstein cows are large black and white animals with an enormous yield of milk of not inferior quality. Individual cows of this breed are credited with as high as 20,000 pounds of milk in a single year. The Ayrshire breed of red and white cows originated in Scotland. The Devon cow from South England is almost entirely red. The Jerseys and the Guernseys are from the Channel Islands between England and France. Durhams are a large red and white breed from England, celebrated more for beef; yet a Durham, or short horned cow is reported from Wisconsin as yielding 584 pounds of butter in a year. Her owner states that it cost him $39.60 for feed, and that the total value of her production was $131.83. The cow is a wonderful producer of food. The Nebraska experiment station claims a cow that produces 17,000 pounds of milk yielding 650 pounds of butter in a year. The Princess Carlotta, a Holstein cow owned by the dairy department of the University of Missouri, in one year produced 18,405 pounds of milk,--more human food in her milk than is contained in the complete carcasses of four steers weighing 1,250 pounds each. Successful dairymen consider that it costs no more to keep a productive animal than a poor one.
The importance of the cow in modern civilization may be seen by the following statistics taken from the last United States census. It should be remembered that the United States is only one of a number of countries in which cows are kept for dairying purposes.
| Total number of cows in the United States | 18,112,707 |
| Average yield of milk in gallons | 424 |
| Annual yield of milk in gallons | 7,728,583,350 |
| Annual production of cheese in pounds | 299,006,818 |
| Annual production of butter in pounds | 1,492,699,143 |
To this enormous production must be added the cow's share of beef and leather.
The Orange Judd Farmer ventured the following estimate of the number and value of milk cows by states January 1, 1909:
Number. Value.
| New England . . . . . 1,039,000 | $38,443,000 |
| New York . . . . . 1,819,000 | 62,756,000 |
| New Jersey . . . . . 191,000 | 8,022,000 |
| Pennsylvania . . . . . 1,163,000 | 43,322,000 |
| Texas . . . . . 1,050,000 | 26,775,000 |
| Arkansas . . . . . 342,000 | 7,250,000 |
| Tennessee . . . . . 378,000 | 7,828,000 |
| West Virginia . . . . . 212,000 | 6,572,000 |
| Kentucky . . . . . 394,000 | 11,465,000 |
| Ohio . . . . . 921,000 | 34,031,000 |
| Michigan . . . . . 800,000 | 27,600,000 |
| Indiana . . . . . 656,000 | 22,828,000 |
| Illinois . . . . . 1,287,000 | 49,228,000 |
| Wisconsin . . . . . 1,201,000 | 37,111,000 |
| Minnesota . . . . . 1,025,000 | 31,006,000 |
| Iowa . . . . . 1,684,000 | 57,677,000 |
| Missouri . . . . . 845,000 | $25,688,000 |
| Kansas . . . . . 872,000 | 27,294,000 |
| Nebraska . . . . . 750,000 | 22,388,000 |
| North Dakota . . . . . 241,000 | 7,519,000 |
| South Dakota . . . . . 620,000 | 17,081,000 |
| Colorado . . . . . 411,000 | 14,693,000 |
| Oregon . . . . . 175,000 | 6,563,000 |
| Washington . . . . . 172,000 | 6,364,000 |
| Oklahoma . . . . . 225,000 | 6,345,000 |
| Other states . . . . . 2,614,000 | 68,964,000 |
Total . . . . . 21,087,000 $674,813,000
The average value of the American cow is placed at $32 per head. For the same year the Government Year Book values the various dairy products at a grand total of $665,000,000. One strong argument in favor of dairying is the well known principle that the sale of butter and cheese robs the farm of little plant food. A dairy farm well managed grows more and more productive.