THE CATTLE OF BRAZIL 



Native Stocks Among the Finest in the World, but Ruined by Indiscriminate 

 Cross-breeding — Introduction of the Zebu and Its Gradual Pre- 

 ponderance — Future of Live-stock Industry Jeopardized 

 by Its Spread. 1 



Jose Maria Dos Reis 

 Director of the Model Cattle-breeding Farm of Uheraba, Minas Geraes, Brazil 



BEFORE the introduction of the 

 zebu, the bovine population of 

 that rich portion of southern 

 Brazil known as the Triangle of 

 Minas Geraes was made up of diverse 

 races which indiscriminate cross-breed- 

 ing had brought to a degenerate condi- 

 tion. In spite, however, of this mixture 

 of blood, under the breeding methods of 

 the plains of Minas, Goyaz and Matto 

 Grosso, there were formed, it may be 

 said as a result of natural selection, 

 races of cattle well suited for use in 

 improving the country's live stock 

 industry. 



In the Triangle one particular race 

 of local origin attracted the admiration 

 of the whole world in the middle of the 

 last century. 



This breed, the ancestors of which are 

 to be sought in old Portugal, is connected 

 with the great Alemtejan race. Crossed 

 with cows of the same race, already 

 modified by Brazilian conditions, there 

 was produced the bull known as the 

 bruxo or junqueiro or pedreiro, or most 

 commonly franqueiro. 



Produced perhaps in the first place 

 in the Triangle, the junqueiro cattle 

 soon become better known as Franca 

 cattle, largely through the influence 

 of European zootechnists who took an 

 interest in our stock-breeding. 



In those days this favored zone of the 

 Triangle of Minas, farther towards the 

 interior of central Brazil, did not 

 maintain, like Franca during the time 

 of the emperors, commercial relations 

 with the littoral, which the fame of 

 this ancient city of Sao Paulo won for it. 

 The Triangle was, then, in that epoch, 



a zone all but unknown, and when its 

 breeders shipped out their cattle along 

 with the Franca cattle, the junqueiro 

 bulls lost this name in Sao Paulo, 

 becoming known simply as franqueiro 

 cattle, a name which passed into 

 scientific literature. 



cornevin's description 



It was, then, in Franca that Cornevin 

 found the excellent breed which orig- 

 inated in Brazil and has maintained its 

 specific characters down to the present 

 time. He described it as "a type of 

 great weight, heavy skeleton, long legs, 

 long, coarse, red hair, with more or less 

 pronounced tendencies to orange and 

 canary-yellow; tail short and thick, 

 with a well-developed, close switch, 

 head large and flat, horns formidable." 



According to this writer the franqueiro 

 is related to Bos pr imi genius , which 

 became extinct in Germany in the 

 middle ages, while Nehring places it 

 with the later B. frontosus, of the 

 commencement of the present geological 

 era. 



For the rest, whether or not we admit 

 the relations traced by these dis- 

 tinguished zootechnists, the franqueiro 

 bull of the Triangle has its origin in the 

 brachycephalous breed of the Iberian 

 peninsula, originating in Portugal and 

 introduced to this part of Minas in the 

 last century by Col. Joao Francisco 

 Diniz Junqueira. 



But it is by no means the type which 

 can be considered ideal for Brazilian 

 purposes. There is yet much room for 

 improvement. 



1 Translated from Chacaras e Quintaes, VIII, 1, 44, Rio de Janeiro, July, 1913. 



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