Wow, I didn't know earmarking cattle was that widespread. I'd thought most of them were branded. But I was really more interested in the association with earmarking books. I suppose that came about because turning down the top corner of the page made the page look like it had an ear? Which practice, thanks to some rather fearsome elementary-school teachers, I do not do. Never, under ANY circumstances, do I consider it okay to turn down the page corner in a Book. Books are sacred, not to be defiled, in my mind, thusly. I straighten out pages in library books, even when you get those that have 10 or 20 kind of crunched down together.