JERSEY CATTLE 



FOR 



THE DAIRY, THE HOUSEHOLD, AND THE LAWK 



Prize Essay, by George E. Waring, Jr. 



THE IMPROVEMENT OP RACES OP CATTLE. 



The improvement of various breeds of cattle has been actuated by 

 certain specified needs, and has enlisted the close attention of men who, 

 devoting themselves to one object, have worked with all the persistence 

 of enthusiasts, and have accomplished results far beyond any concep- 

 tion of progress which the founders of the improvement could have 

 imagined. 



The desire for a race of beef cattle which should arrive at early maturity, 

 and should present a carcass having the heaviest weight of flesh in the 

 more valuable hind-quarters, led to the foundation of the Short-horn 

 race, and has developed a class of breeders whose enthusiasm may well 

 be called wild — an enthusiasm which stops at no extravagance of price, 

 and which bears the loss of animals costing thousands of dollars with- 

 out discouragement. The aim has been followed with an entire single- 

 ness of purpose. Beef, and beef only, has been the aim from the outset. 

 Shy-breeding, very defective lactation, and not seldom a weakening of 

 the constitution, have all been more or less disregarded. The result, as 

 a matter of meat at a very early age, has been such as could have been 

 attained by no other process than that of a complete disregard of every 

 qualification except the one sought. 



In like manner, special breeders of Ayrshire and Dutch cattle have 

 concentrated their energies upon an enormous and persistent flow of 

 milk, pursuing their aim with such dogged perseverance that they have 

 obtained a yield that the wildest enthusiast of a hundred years ago 

 would not have deemed possible. 



Other races in other countries have had their adherents, who have 

 labored with equal success in the development of special characteristics. 



