DAIRY CATTLE. 



THE JERSEY COW A MONEY MAKER. 

 By G. M. Gowell, Bowdoin. 



L. S. Harden, in his admirable essay on Jersey cattle, says: 



"The man who handles Jerse}- cattle, must have ground into his 

 natirre all the known principles that govern the art of breeding. In 

 the development of science there is generalh' an accumulation 

 of knowledge, and the new worker begins w^iere his predecessor 

 left off. With this accumulated knowledge and the simple principles 

 of induction he is certain to make some progress." 



The man who starts out to improve our dairy cattle is not so 

 fortunate. While he has some excellent breeds to begin with, 3'et 

 when he comes to think that some of them have been hundreds of years 

 acquiring their present excellences, and then, onl}' because they 

 seem to have grown into the habits of their owners, the outlook is 

 anything but cheerful. 



So far as the principles involved in breeding are concerned, the 

 whole matter is lamentabl}' empirical, each man following his own 

 fancy. Now that the intelligent minds of the country are taking up 

 the business of breeding there should be more information and 

 greater precision of thought brought to tlie task. 



Let us take a cursory glance along the line of progress already 

 accomplished in the art of breeding. The bovine race and man are 

 intimately associated in the earliest glimpses of ancient histor}', and 

 this intimacy, never relaxing, has grown closer and closer to the 

 present day. But with all the evidence around him of the improve- 

 ment under domestication, — at least so far as his own wants are 

 concerned — of these animals there yet seems to have been no settled 

 effort to breed them for a specific purpose until late in the eighteenth 

 or early in the ninetenth century. The first reliable history we have 

 of the improved breeds is contained in the work of Wm. Youatt of 



