THE GUERNSEY COW. 135 



and the island is onl}' about six miles square, yet they have, I 

 think, about four thousand animals, which gives a good idea of the 

 richness of the soil. 



One great advantage in the Guernse}' cow is the ver}' high color 

 of her milk. It is very much higher colored than that of the Jersey. 

 To go into personalities a little, when I first began to make butter 

 I went into the Island of Jersey and bought me a herd of Jerseys, 

 and I made butter for the Boston market. That was twenty-five 

 years ago. I made through the winter a butter the color of which 

 which was perfectly satisfactory to the market and used no artificial 

 coloring. I don't mean to disparage the Jerseys, because I have 

 bred them a good man}' years and have had some very good ones, 

 and still have the greatest respect for them ; but I was led to change 

 my breed after having bred the Jerseys for ten 3'ears. At an auction 

 sale in Boston of iuipoited Guernseys I bought two heifers, and one 

 of them calved the nest January. In a few days her milk was put 

 in with the milk of the rest of the cows. My dairyman who made 

 the butter was not a very good friend of my herdsman, and he 

 informed me one day that the herdsman was not feeding my cattle 

 according to orders ; said he was feeding too many carrots, and 

 called my attention to the butter. I was milking twent^'-two Jersey's 

 and this one Guernsej' heifer. I looked at the butter and concluded 

 somebody had been doing something wrong. I went to the barn 

 and was there assured that there had been no change in the feed. 

 I could not make it out until it came into my mind that possibly 

 that little Guernsey heifer might have made the difference. I set 

 her milk and churned it separately, and I found that it had. It 

 was quite a lump of leaven for one two year-old heifer to color the 

 milk from twenty-two Jerseys. That was one of the reasons that 

 induced me to think more of the breed. I bred from those two for 

 several years, and finally gave up the Jerseys, although the last 

 three I sold made records of twenty-three pounds of butter a week. 

 Now I am breeding Guernseys. Their being a larger breed seems 

 to make them an all-round cow for the farmer, because you have a 

 calf of good size for veal and steers large enough to make workers, 

 and they are not quite as nervous or high strung as the Jerseys. 

 The Guernsey bulls I find no trouble with whatever. I work them 

 in yoke as I do my oxen. I don't know that I can describe the 

 appearance of the Guernsey any better than to say that she would 

 remind you more of a very yellow skinned rich grade Shorthorn. 



