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Handbook of Nature-Study 



animals; second, as meat; third, as givers of milk. They were also used 

 in the earlier ages as sacrifices to the various deities, and in Egypt, some 

 were held as sacred. 



As beasts of burden and draft animals, oxen are still used in many 

 parts of the United States. For logging, especially in pioneer days, oxen 

 were far more valuable than horses. They are patient and will pull a few 

 inches at a time, if necessary, a tedious work which the nervous horse 

 refuses to endure. Cows too, have been used as draft animals, and are so 

 used in China today, where they do most of the plowing; in these oriental 

 countries milk is not consumed to any extent, so the cow is kept for the 

 work she can do. In ancient times in the East, white oxen formed a part 

 of royal processions. 



Beef cattle. 



Because of two main uses of cattle by civilized man, he has bred them 

 in two directions; one for producing beef, and one for milk. The beef 

 cattle are chiefly Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, Short-horn or Durham, and 

 Hereford; the dairy breeds are the Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire, Holstein- 

 Frisian and Brown Swiss. The beef animal is, in cross-section, approxi- 

 mately like a brick set sidewise. It should be big and full across the loins 

 and back, the shoulders and hips covered heavily with flesh, the legs stout, 

 the neck thick and short, and the face short; the line of the back is 

 straight, and the stomach line parallel with it. Very different is the 

 appearance of the milch cow. Her body is oval, instead of being approxi- 

 mately square in cross-section. The outline of her back is not straight, 



