THE JERSEY BREED 21 L 



The Jersey 1 is the most numerously represented the 

 normal stock of the island varying from 11,000 to 13,000 

 head and the most important of the three breeds, which at 

 some distant date sprang from a common origin, in which 

 the Brittany breed of the adjacent French coast and the 

 Normandy breed participated. Some specimens of these 

 animals, especially in the mountainous parts of Brittany, so 

 strongly resemble Jersey cattle, although very inferior in 

 milking qualities and the development of good dairying 

 appearances, that they have been sold in large numbers in 

 this country as Islands cattle, to the detriment of the good 

 name of, and injury to the trade in, the genuine animals. 



As far back as 1/34 (fully one hundred and seventy years 

 ago) superiority was claimed for jersey cattle. Col. le 

 Couteur attributes the excellence of the cow " to the circum- 

 stance 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 milking and butter-yield- 

 ing properties of the race at large This never could have 

 been attained so generally in Normandy, from whence our 

 breed probably originated, or in any other extended country." 



The "whole" or "self" colouring, and the light shades 

 which prevail (prominently fawn or greys) in the modern Jersey 

 are of comparatively recent date, and have been encouraged by 

 many English and American buyers, who were partial to them. 



Cattle are now to some extent bred as a result of merit. in 

 performance, and colour is of secondary consideration. The 

 loss in the milking qualities of the breed resulting from 

 breeding for fashionable colours was very striking. Silver- 

 grey, a colour obtained by a Swiss cross, was in great repute 

 in England in the early seventies of last century, and animals 

 with defective udders were kept for breeding on account of 



1 Articles on Jersey cattle appear in the 1880 Report of 'the Agricultural 

 Department, Washington j in the U.S.A. Consular Reports on Cattle and* 

 Dairy Farming, 1888 ; and \\\t Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society 

 of England, 2nd series, vols. xiv., xvii., and xxi. For much information 

 the Author is also indebted to the exhaustive treatise on the history of the 

 Jersey breed of cattle by John Thornton, being the introduction to the 

 first volume of the English Herd Book of Jersey Cattle^ 1880. 



