376 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to a reddish fawn. Women take the entire charge of the 

 cows and calves, which probably accounts for their extreme 

 docility. 



The farms being so small, the cattle are never allowed to 

 run in pasture, but are tethered out, and moved from place to 

 place several times during the day. It is not an unfrequent 

 sight to see one woman leading half a dozen cows from the 

 barn to the field, and with more ease than a man can lead 

 one of our so-called quiet cows. 



Nearly one thousand cows are exported annually, and, until 

 the last few years, almost exclusively to England, where they 

 are eagerly sought for private dairies. 



These cattle combine many desirable qualities for the prac- 

 tical farmer ; as in the first place they are large animals, and, 

 when dry, fatten easily, and make a very fine quality of beef. 



On the Island of Guernsey the butchers frequently kill 

 cows that dress eight hundred pounds ; and steers of this 

 breed, of which many are in use on the island for farm pur- 

 poses, weigh from eleven hundred to fourteen hundred 

 pounds. These figures are taken from a Guernsey paper. 



The above are ' only average weights, as I have now a 

 five-year-old imported bull which has had no grain at all for 

 three years, that weighs sixteen hundred and twenty pounds. 

 The cows will weigh from nine hundred to thirteen hundred 

 pounds, the latter being above the average. 



Their beef qualities and size, however, are perhaps of less 

 consequence than their other good qualities. At the pail 

 they prove themselves not only very large milkers (twenty 

 quarts not being an uncommon yield for a mature cow, or 

 fourteen quarts for a heifer with first calf), but they con- 

 tinue in milk very well up to their time of calving. Their 

 udders are generally large and square, with good-sized teats. 

 The quality of their milk is superior in color and richness 

 to any other known breed ; and butter made from pure 

 Guernsey cream would be pronounced, even by experts, 

 colored artificially, unless they were familiar with Guernsey 

 butter. 



The island records of butter productions give an average 

 of one pound a day for the whole year ; and selected cows 

 would nearly double the amount. 



In several experiments made in this country, between 



