State Agricultural Society. 517 



verted into butter. Assuming this to be true, may we not infer that an 

 animal whose lungs have been enlarged by generations of work or 

 exercise, breathing more largely because of greater lung capacity, ox- 

 idizes and expires a larger amount of the very elements required for the 

 production of butter? However true this theory, the facts on which it 

 is based are unquestionable. The similarity of type between the cattle 

 of Jersey and those of South Germany, and the fact that in the one 

 case where they remain indolent throughout their whole lives, and in 

 the other where they are almost constantly at work in the yoke, their 

 yield of butter is very different, would seem to indicate the soundness 

 of the reasoning. 



EARLY EXCELLENCE. 



Before the beginning of this century, say more than one hundred 

 years ago, the cattle of Jersey had a well-recognized character as a 

 distinct race, peculiarly adapted for butter making, and qualified by 

 their great docility for the sj'stem of small cultivation which has 

 always characterized that island. As long ago as the year seventeen 

 hundred and eighty-nine, they were considered so superior for the uses 

 required in Jersey to any other known breed, that an Act of the local 

 Legislature was passed, by which the importation of all foreign-bred 

 cattle — cow, heifer, calf, or bull — was prohibited, under heavy money 

 penalty, in addition to the forfeiture of the vessel and its tackle, and a 

 considerable fine to be imposed on every member of the crew who did 

 not inform the authorities of the attempt to violate the law. Every 

 animal so arriving was decreed to be immediately slaughtered, and its 

 flesh to be given to the poor. Subsequent enactments have been 

 equally rigorous, and no foreign cattie are allowed to be landed in Jer- 

 sey except as butchers' meat. This restriction does not apply to cattle 

 from the Island of Guernsey; but these are so little esteemed by Jer- 

 seymen that there are rarely a dozen Guernsey cows to be found in the 

 whole island.* 



ACTION of the royal jersey AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Aside from this prohibition against the importing of cattle of other 

 races, there seems to have been no regulated effort to improve the breed 

 until about eighteen hundred and thirty-four, when a committee of the 

 Jersey Agricultural Society selected two of the finest cows as models. 

 One of these was held to be perfect in her head and fore-quarters, and 

 the other in her udder and hind quarters. From these two animals 

 there was drawn up a scale of points to guide the judges at the island 

 and parish exhibitions in selecting the best animals among those com- 

 peting for prizes. The scale of points thus determined upon, with one 

 or two unimportant additions since made, will bo given in another part 

 of this essay. 



So strong was the adherence of the Jersey farmers to the single point 

 of milking superiority, that for a long time, and in many cases, even to 

 the present day, they sought no further. Their cattle had always pos- 

 sessed the deer-like head, the fine, crumpled horns, the yellow secre- 



* It is only fair to say that the farmers of Guernsey reverse this estimate, and have no 

 high opinion of the Jersey cows. This mutual prejudice has almost the effect of a legal 

 enactment to prevent an interchange of stock between the two inlands. The writer has 

 been unable to learn that there has ever been an interchange of bulls. 



