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Bovine Lunarometer: 1920

Circa 1920. "Agriculture Department." Cow jumps over moon: astrophysically impossible? Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

Circa 1920. "Agriculture Department." Cow jumps over moon: astrophysically impossible? Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size.

 

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Well-bred Cow Jumper

What a Good Cow Can Do

The Department of Agriculture is trying to impress upon American farmers that fact that poorly bred cows - "scrubs," of inferior pedigree - are not worth their keep these days of high cost. They do not produced enough butterfat.

The record in this respect is held by Tilly Alcarto, a California cow of Holstein-Friesian breed, which produced 32,425 pounds of milk last year.

To illustrate the idea, experts of the dairy division constructed the toy shown in the accompanying picture. When a button is pushed the well-bred cow jumps over the moon (an electric disc); but the scrub cow does not.

Washington Post, Oct 31, 1920

[If only there were a YouTube video (silent, of course) of this thing in action. - Dave]

Your Tax Dollars in Action

And THIS cow cried wee, wee, wee, all the way home! So much for the popular theory that frivolous government-funded studies are a relatively recent phenomenon. This odd presentation does have great visual appeal, rather like the colorful and usually weird animated dioramas that used to be displayed in opticians' shop windows. It would be fun to know the educational spiel that accompanied this model.

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