204 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



will afford 250 lbs. of butter, or 500 lbs. of cheese, annually." 

 Milburn's estimate is that cows of this breed will give 600 to 

 800 gallons of milk in the course of the year, and as much as 

 260 lbs. of butter. Ilaxton cites many statistics, from which 

 it appears that in one dairy of thirty cows, the average annual 

 yield of milk was 682 gallons ; that 9\ quarts afforded a pound 

 of butter, amounting to an aggregate of nearly 274 lbs. in a 

 year. 



This breed has not, as yet, had a fair trial in this country. 

 A few have been imported from time to time within the last 

 twenty years, and the Massachusetts Society for Promoting 

 Agriculture imported several from 1839 to 1844. For the 

 same society I selected and shipped eleven heifers and four 

 bulls, in 1859, all of which arrived safely in this country. I 

 also sent with them eight head of the same breed, for different 

 gentlemen in this State. In 1859 I selected and shipped to 

 H. II. Peters, Esq., of Southborough, twenty-three head of 

 Ayrshires, which, with those obtained for him the previous 

 year and their descendants, make the number of his herd thirty 

 at this time. 



Most of those of the importation of 1858 and 1859 are young, 

 but few of them having bred at the time they were imported. 

 Hence it will require several years to determine their actual 

 character in regard to what they are capable of doing here. 



The Jersey or Alderney breed takes its name from a group 

 of Islands (Jersey, Alderney and Guernsey,) in the English 

 Channel, and is hence sometimes called the Channel Islands 

 breed. These cattle are supposed to have come originally from 

 the French coast, and they certainly bear considerable resem- 

 blance to those of Normandy. Indeed, they were formerly 

 called the " Alderney or Normandy breed." The writer has 

 seen men who had been engaged in selecting cows in Normandy 

 which were sold in England as of the Guernsey breed. The 

 Channel Inlands cows are distinguished for the richness of their 

 milk and the superior quality of the butter it affords. The 

 quantity of butter is also large in proportion to the size of the 

 cow. The old stock of all the Islands was delicate in constitu- 

 tion, and the shape of many of them was ragged and uncouth 

 — as Col. Le Couteur says, in his essay on the Jersey cow, 



