THE HEREFORDS. G< 



four successive seasons, and the yields were such as would be 

 unsatisfactory to a modern dairyman. Now and then a fair 

 milker turned up, but they were in a minority of numbers; 

 taken together they were less than ordinary, for the season. 

 We will not therefore discuss this question further, but pass to 

 another quality as yielding greater pleasure in the relation. 



AS A WORKING OX, 



The Hereford is the peer of any other, and superior to most. 

 Large, strong, muscular, well developed in form, noble, and 

 stately in carriage, he suggests all that need be found in an 

 honest, true worker. At full maturity say six years old he 

 girts 7 to 7K feet behind the shoulders, in ordinary condition, 

 to the Devon's 6 to 6)4 feet, and is every way the more power- 

 ful, if not quite so quick, or active. A team of two, three, or 

 four yokes of Herefords, under the control of a good driver, for 

 "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether," is the perfec- 

 tion of bovine strength and majesty. The joints of the ox are 

 well knit, his sinews strong, his shoulders slant well to the yoke, 

 and he carries his load well, be it at the plow, the cart, or the 

 wagon. He is kindly, intelligent, honest in his labor. We have 

 seen them from half, to three-quarters blood, crossed from the 

 common cow, and up to thorough bred, all of great excellence as 

 draught beasts, well matched, and admirable in all their points. 

 The Hereford blood is strong in marking its descent. From the 

 bulls which were kept in our neighborhood eighteen years ago, 

 crossed upon cows which run on the adjacent commons, in their 

 summer pasturage, we now, in their progeny, to later genera- 

 tions, frequently see cows and oxen but a quarter, an eighth, or 

 sixteenth in blood got by scrub bulls that show strong Here- 

 ford marks in form and color. 



We once reared an ox got by a Hereford bull, on a wretched 

 little black cow, which proved to be a fine, stately ox, of a 



