State Agricultural Society. 527 



come, and naturally anything that is especially required by the market 

 must be supplied by the producer. 



By some process which it is difficult to understand, there has grown 

 up, especially in England, a demand for animals of uniform color — i. e., 

 free from any white marking; high prices have been obtained in the 

 English market for "solid " colors, black switches, and black tongues, 

 rather than for large udders, full milk-veins, and the fine, delicate or- 

 ganizations that indicate large and rich milking. At the time of the 

 formation of the American society this same fancy was beginning to 

 take root among the breeders here; but it is believed that wiser coun- 

 sels are prevailing, and that the selection of animals is now being based 

 on more useful characteristics. The injurious effect of catering to this 

 taste has become so apparent in Jersey that the Agricultural Society 

 there is combating it as actively as possible, believing it to be a suicidal 

 practice which, if persisted in, can only end in the destruction of the 

 qualities which have given the race its chief value. 



Two or three years ago, it was almost impossible to find in the whole 

 island a young bull which had not the fashionable solid color and black 

 points. The writer, being shown a magnificent cow with liberal patches 

 of white upon her, and almost staggering under the weight of a large 

 and handsome udder, asked to see her calf. He was told that it was a 

 bull, and that as it had some white marks, and was therefore unsuited 

 for the English demand, it had been killed. The owner of this cow 

 afterward showed, with evident pride, a light-gray bull calf with a black 

 switch, for which he expected to obtain a "long" price, but whose dam 

 was a very inferior milker and the least promising as a dairy cow of the 

 whole herd. 



It is by no means asserted that the so-called " fashionable " color is 

 in any way incompatible with the best dairy quality; but it is urged 

 very strongly that it will never do in breeding cattle for a given purpose, 

 to take as a standard any point that is not indicative of excellence for 

 that purpose. Such a point, in breeding dairy cattle, is certainly not 

 the color of the hair and switch, and any considerable knowledge of 

 Jersey cattle must convince the most enthusiastic black-point man that 

 if the selection is to be confined to animals having his favorite markings, 

 there must be excluded a very large proportion of the finest dairy ani- 

 mals of the breed. Formerly a breeder showed with pride the rich yel- 

 low skin underlying the white hair upon his favorite cow, and it seems 

 a pity that this valuable indicatiomof high-colored butter should be lost. 

 The question of beauty is a question of taste, and questions of taste are 

 not to be discussed; but those of us are not few who still think that a 

 herd of Jersey cattle is more attractive and is better constituted to make 

 a fine show in a pasture, for being variously colored and variously accent- 

 uated with white. The argument here presented is, however, based not 

 at all upon the question of taste, but -entirely upon the more practical 

 one of the amount of butter to be yielded by the cow. It is firml}' be- 

 lieved that the road to the greatest possible excellence in this respect 

 lies through a selection which shall have its range over the whole breed, 

 and shall not be confined to such specimens as are of a particular color- 

 ing. 



In the essay published in the first volume of the Club's "Register," 

 it is stated that in the island Herd Book there were entries of one hun- 

 dred and twenty-four bulls and four hundred and seventy-four cows: 

 forty-one of the bulls and one hundred and six of the cows being " highly 

 commended." Of these one hundred and forty-seven animals, only 



