32 THE JERSEY, ALDERNEY AND GUERNSEY COW. 



months out of the twelve. While I am writing, a hurri- 

 cane from the south-west has burst over us, and burned 

 all the exposed trees like a flame ; it has ruined scores 

 of orchards and gardens, levelled many trees, leaving 

 the pastures like damaged hay. Hence this elevated 

 coast has usually a short, scant, rich, nutritious herbage, 

 from being so frequently saturated with saline moisture. 

 Thus the cattle on this side are small, fine-limbed, and 

 hardy. 



"The southward half of Jersey may be called an in- 

 clined plane, gradually and beautifully slanting to the 

 sea-shore, watered by innumerable streams. A part of 

 it is a rich alluvial soil and meadow- land — so sheltered 

 and warmed as to produce fruit and vegetables a fort- 

 night or three weeks sooner than in my neighborhood. 

 The cattle of this district are, consequently, fed on a 

 richer pasture. They are larger in carcass, some think 

 handsomer, than those of the upland. I consider them 

 to be more delicate. 



" The late Earl Spencer, and former President of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society, England, the able and 

 worthy contemporary of Bates, Booth, and other noted 

 Short-horn breeders, had a fine little herd of Jersey 

 cows. When on a visit to him at Althorp, in 1839, ^^ 

 strongly advised me to recommend our farmers never 

 to venture on a foreign cross, nor with Short-horns or 

 Devons : merely to cross the cows of the low, rich pas- 

 tures with the hardy bulls of the exposed northern 

 coasts, and vice versa; we had established a character 



