THE DAIRY BREEDS OF CATTLE 257 



mandy and Brittany. Rev. Philip Falle wrote, in 1734, 

 " The cattle on this Island are superior to the French." 

 Thomas Quayle, in 1812, asserted an advantage over any 

 other breed in the quantity and quality of cream produced 

 from the consumption of a given quantity of fodder. 

 Garrard, in the first part of the last century, gave the milk 

 yield as three to four gallons a day, and the butter yield 

 as 220 to 230 pounds a cow a year. According to Inglis, 

 the general average produced at that time was ten quarts 

 of milk a day and seven pounds of butter a week. 



No distinct characteristics as to form and color were 

 given by the earliest writers, except that Colonel Le 

 Couteur mentions the fact that the Jersey farmer was 

 content to possess an ugly, ill-formed animal with flat 

 sides, cat-hams, narrow and high hips, a hollow back, 

 yet ever possessing a lively eye, round barrel, deep chest, 

 short, fine, deerlike limbs and a fine tail. Nor do any 

 of the writers give the reason why the Jersey was superior 

 to other breeds, until the article by Colonel Le Couteur 

 appeared in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England, in 1845. In this article Colonel 

 Le Couteur says : " The Jersey cow was excellent as 

 she has ever been, which has been attributed to the cir- 

 cumstance of a few farmers having constantly attended 

 to raising stock from cows of the best milking qualities, 

 which attention, prosecuted for a long number of years 

 in a small country like ours, where such superior qualities 

 would soon be known, led to the excellence of milk- and 

 butter-yielding qualities in the race. This never could 

 have been secured so generally in Normandy, from whence 

 our breed probably originated, or in any other extended 

 country." We may assume, then, that the breed owes 

 its peculiar qualities to an evolution of persistent breeding 



