During the 1880s there was a burgeoning interest in breeding Holstein Friesian cows. Several associations emerged to record pedigrees and maintain herd books. The Holstein Friesian Association of America was formed in 1885 as a merger of these separate associations. Farmers applied to certify their cow in Holstein-Friesian book, and they gained a permanent spot in the record of cattle. The Davis family owned a farm in Frederick County, Maryland for over one hundred years. One inheritor of the farm, R. Lee managed the farm for his father after 1895 and he transitioned the farm to specialize in dairy and incorporated many modern techniques. J.C. Thomas Williams in his History of Frederick County says that Lee was “one of the most successful young farmers in this section, intelligent and fully ‘up-to-date’ in his methods.” Lee bought and bred Holstein-Friesian cows, joined the Holstein-Friesian associations and certified his cows in a manner customary of large dairy operations. He sold his dairy products primarily to merchants and retailers in Baltimore.
A collection of the Davis family papers contains surviving records of the farm’s operations. These documents include the farm’s finances, wills, records of investments and blueprints describing the construction of dairy barns in the 1930s. Some of the most striking documents in this collection are a series of cow registration forms. Not unlike modern vehicle registrations, these certificates of registry, showed that the cow was entered in the Holstein-Friesian book. The front of the certificates included sections to input the cow’s name, breeding facility, owner, birth date, parents’ names, and registration number. It also included a section for brief physical descriptions. The description of one cow, Stelaris, from 1893 reads: “stripe up right shldr over on left, patch on left hind qtr, spot on left side, spot on right hind qtr, left of brisket, belly flanks, legs except part of forearms, 2-3 tail, white.” The back of the certificate included two pre-outlined cows facing opposite directions. The owner was supposed to sketch the relative position of the cow’s spots on these diagrams. The features outlined both in the description and picture space of the certificates were the cow’s spots. During this time it was believed that a cow’s milking and breeding capacity corresponded with the placement of birth marks. Early on, we see how the features rendered most visible are those associated with productive capacities. These early breeding stages erected a mode of viewing the bodies of dairy cows.
