304 THE BREEDS OF LIVE-STOCK 



DUTCH BELTED CATTLE. Figs. 53, 54. 

 By Frank R. Sanders 



338. Dutch Belted cattle are a dairy breed. Their 

 native home is in Holland, where they are known as Laken- 

 felds, Lakenvelders or Veldlarkers, which means literally 

 a field of white, but conveys the idea of a white body with 

 black ends. 



339. History in Holland. The early history of this 

 breed is not fully understood, but from the records obtain- 

 able, and from conversation with several of the oldest 

 breeders in Holland, it seems that these cattle began to 

 flourish about 1750, and no doubt the system of selection 

 by which this marvelous color breeding was attained, dates 

 back into the sixteenth century. One breeder says his 

 father informed him that there were gentlemen of wealth 

 and leisure near what is now called Haarlem, North Hol- 

 land, who conceived the idea of breeding animals of all kinds 

 to a certain color, chiefly with a broad band of white in the 

 center of the body, with black ends. These noblemen had 

 large estates, and it is said that for more than 100 years 

 they and their descendants worked on the perfection of 

 these peculiar color-markings, until they produced belted 

 cattle, pigs and poultry. That these breeders were wonder- 

 fully successful, no one questions, as we have the results 

 of their labors in the Dutch Belted cattle, Lakenvelder 

 poultry of England and America, the Lancheswine of Hol- 

 land and Germany and the Hampshire swine of America, 

 which were supposed to originate in Hampshire, England, 

 but undoubtedly are the descendants of the Haarlem herds 

 of long ago. All of these breeds possess a belt, and carry 

 out the idea of their originators in a marvelous degree. 



