{"id":643,"date":"2024-04-26T20:11:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T20:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/?p=643"},"modified":"2025-10-14T14:54:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T14:54:44","slug":"belle-sarcastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/belle-sarcastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Belle Sarcastic (1890\u20141903)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Belle Sarcastic, circa 1900. Image source: MSU Archives<\/a><\/span> which has adopted her as an unofficial mascot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Belle Sarcastic was a Holstein-Friesian cow owned by the Michigan Agricultural College in the 1890s. For a dairy cow, she garnered quite a bit of fame in her lifetime, and was a source of great pride for the College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was bred by H. P. Doane of Duffield in Genesee County, and calved on January 18, 1890. Belle was acquired by the College soon after, but nearly became an early cull. In 1893, Clinton D. Smith arrived at M.A.C. to become Professor of Practical Agriculture and Superintendent of the Farm. He described three-year-old Belle Sarcastic as \u201cdecidedly beefy and steer-like,\u201d \u201csimply a square brick,\u201d and deemed her unfit as a dairy cow. Smith later wrote,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

As I made my first official visit and inspection, I told the herdsman, Richard Harrison, the best cow feeder in America, that there was one heifer that should go to the block. His mind was less clouded by theory than mine, and he plead for her life for another year. I let her live. You know the result.<\/p>\nHolstein-Friesian Herd-Book<\/em>, vol. 19 (1901), p. 75.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The result was that within a year, Belle had given birth to her second calf\u00a0and, to Smith\u2019s surprise, \u201cfrom a fine beef animal, she developed into an ideal dairy cow.\u201d Although her milk and butterfat production were prodigious, she \u201cconsumed absolutely less than the standard required,\u201d with \u201cdainty\u201d eating habits and, somewhat idiosyncratically, \u201ca very strong liking for roots.\u201d In 1895, she gave milk for 738 pounds of butter, a feat that Professor Beal saw fit to include in his \u201cCollege as a River\u201d timeline, a foldout addendum to his\u00a0History of the Michigan Agricultural College<\/em>. Two years later Belle outdid herself, producing 23,190 pounds of milk and 722 pounds of fat\u2014a world record that stood for eleven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, in that record-setting year of 1897 Belle Sarcastic was quarantined from the herd when she was diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis, a frequently occurring ailment in that era. Given that the disease can cause loss of both appetite and weight, this makes her record all the more impressive. Professor Smith, in his annual report to the Board of Agriculture, blamed the inadequate design and poor condition of the old cattle barn<\/a> (built in 1862) for the illness\u2014a situation that was soon remedied with the construction of two new dairy barns.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarcastic Lad (1897\u20141910)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Sarcastic Lad, 1910. Public domain image courtesy of University of Illinois Archives<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Belle Sarcastic\u2019s greatest production, however, was undoubtedly her fourth calf: Sarcastic Lad, bred at the College and calved on October 18, 1897. The bull was sold before birth to noted breeders W. J. Gillett & Son of Rosendale, Wisconsin. In 1904, Sarcastic Lad was exhibited by the \u201cWorld\u2019s Fair Holstein Association\u201d at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis\u2014better known as the St. Louis World\u2019s Fair\u2014and won the Grand Champion title in his class (and a $75 prize). He was described as \u201ca typical dairy bull, weighing 2,200 pounds, [with] the active, aggressive dairy temperament. He walks as if he owned the earth.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the fair he was acquired by the University of Illinois at Urbana, where he headed that school\u2019s herd until his death in 1910 \u201cat the advanced age of thirteen years.\u201d Sarcastic Lad became \u201cone of the noted sires of the breed,\u201d renowned for passing along his dam\u2019s \u201cideal dairy cow\u201d aspects to his scores of children, hundreds of grandchildren, and generations beyond. Assuming that trend continued, it is possible that thousands of registered Holstein cows today might trace their bloodlines to Sarcastic Lad.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update, June 2024: A bold statement—but is it true? Perhaps. After further research, I posted a reconsideration<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traverse Colantha Walker (1916\u20141932)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Traverse Colantha Walker, date unknown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One notable descendant was Traverse Colantha Walker, a great-great-granddaughter of Sarcastic Lad calved in 1916. She was bred and owned by the Traverse City State Hospital, also known as the Northern Michigan Asylum, which operated a sizeable farm as part of its design for self-sufficiency. \u201cSizeable\u201d would describe the cow as well\u2014she was \u201cso large that the official measuring sticks of the State Department of Agriculture were a couple of feet short.\u201d She was another world record holder, setting a lifetime tally of 7,525.8 pounds of fat and more than 200,000 pounds of milk over nine lactation periods. Her death in 1932 was marked by a memorial banquet at the hospital and an obituary in Michigan Farm News<\/em> that likened her to Paul Bunyan\u2019s legendary purple cow Lucy. The following year, an appropriately large granite stone was placed upon her grave.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Traverse Colantha Walker\u2019s gravesite, 2007. Photo by takomabibelot<\/a>, used under CC BY 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today the hospital site has been adaptively redeveloped as \u201cthe Village at Grand Traverse Commons\u201d and Traverse Colantha Walker is the asylum\u2019s most famous former resident. Popularly known as \u201cColantha\u201d (though there have been thousands of others with Colantha in their names), she is the subject of a children\u2019s picture book of historic fiction. For several years an annual festival was held in her honor, although it appears that the celebration did not continue into the post-Covid era. In 2022, a bronze statue of the cow was unveiled at the botanic garden about a half mile south of the Village main buildings, near her gravesite which remains a popular destination for curiosity-seekers.<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. 36th\u00a0AR<\/a>\u00a0(1897), p.\u00a031. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. 37th Annual Report, Missouri State Board of Agriculture (1905), p.\u00a0343. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. Holstein-Friesian Herd-Book, vol.\u00a055 (1925), p.\u00a099. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. Coloma Courier 35(26), 18\u00a0Jan\u00a01929, p.\u00a06. Michigan Farm News<\/a>\u00a010(2), 23\u00a0Jan\u00a01932, p.\u00a02. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Belle Sarcastic was a Holstein-Friesian cow owned by the Michigan Agricultural College in the 1890s. For a dairy cow, she garnered quite a bit of fame in her lifetime, and was a source of great pride for the College. She was bred by H. P. Doane of Duffield in Genesee County, and calved on January 18, 1890. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"36th\u00a0AR<\/a>\u00a0(1897), p.\u00a031.\",\"id\":\"986e7fb6-0d46-4dce-90c9-c22a8622ccda\"},{\"content\":\"37th Annual Report, Missouri State Board of Agriculture (1905), p.\u00a0343.\",\"id\":\"8d696cfc-ba1a-4bbe-a2cb-c15e22a8d3c7\"},{\"content\":\"Holstein-Friesian Herd-Book, vol.\u00a055 (1925), p.\u00a099.\",\"id\":\"b67981e4-ab29-48aa-8d06-dbfb258ed269\"},{\"content\":\"Coloma Courier 35(26), 18\u00a0Jan\u00a01929, p.\u00a06. Michigan Farm News<\/a>\u00a010(2), 23\u00a0Jan\u00a01932, p.\u00a02.\",\"id\":\"9b8a44cf-c945-4497-aece-bd873afa1fe4\"}]"},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-m-a-c-people"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5193,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/5193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}