Cow
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Cow. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
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.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the female of the bovine species called the ox (Bos taurus), of which the bull is the male. Like other domestic animals it has run into numerous varieties, and its primitive uniformity has given rise to manifold diversity. Nor is it in color alone that it has alterated. It has done so in form, besides which there are horned and hornless oxen. The Darwinian principle of natural selection with the survival of the fittest has adapted cattle of different sizes and qualities to different parts of the country; little, active cattle, thriving on the scanty herbage found high up the mountainside, and large, heavy, slow-going cattle of luxurious proclivities falling off unless they are allowed to revel amid the rank vegetation of river sides and meadows. The latter furnish the greatest quantity of milk. See DAIRY.