314 THE BREEDS OF LIVE-STOCK . 



polled cows and bulls are specially referred to. Money 

 Griggs, of Gately, who died in 1872, in his hundredth 

 year, and who had been for upwards of eighty years a 

 tenant of the Elmham estate, informed Mr. Fulcher, 

 when making inquiries as to the breed, that " from his 

 earliest recollection Red Polled cattle had been kept in 

 the neighborhood of Elmham." 



355. History in America. There seems little doubt 

 that our so-called native muley cows are descendants, 

 more or less mixed with other strains, of the Norfolk and 

 Suffolk cows brought over by the early emigrants from 

 that section. They have been preserved from extinction 

 by the persistence of their good qualities. The persist- 

 ence with which the old Suffolk traits are transmitted, 

 under what would seem most adverse conditions, finds a 

 striking illustration in what were known in Massachusetts 

 as Jamestown cattle. In 1847, during the famine in 

 Ireland, the people of Boston sent a shipload of provisions 

 to that country to relieve the distress. As a slight token 

 of appreciation, a Mr. Jeffries, living near Cork, presented 

 to the captain a Suffolk polled heifer. She was delivered 

 by him to the donors of the provisions, and was sold at 

 auction for the benefit of the fund. She proved a re- 

 markably fine milker, and her progeny (mostly bulls, by 

 what were then known as Alderney sires) were used 

 largely in the dairy herds about Boston. The progeny 

 of these half-blood Suffolk bulls were nearly all hornless, 

 and were so superior to the ordinary cattle of the district 

 as to become noted. They were known as Jamestown 

 cattle, from the name of the vessel in which the heifer 

 came over. At several local fairs they were shown in 

 considerable numbers. 



The first regular importation of Red Polled cattle for 



