LIVE STOCK 



Cattle-breeding 



THE OXEN AND BUFFALOES 



Hump. 



Most Sacred of 

 Animals. 



Climatic 

 Influences. 



Local Selection. 



Foreign Strains 

 Undesirable. 



Draught 

 Animals. 



Trotting 

 Bullocks. 

 Milch-cows. 



Fitch. 



Europe by the hump on the shoulders, by the deep undulating dewlap, 

 and by the short grunt in place of the ringing bellow of the European 

 ox (Imp. Gaz., iii., 77-89). Many European travellers in India 

 allude to the " hump " as a special feature of the provisions (beef) 

 procurable in India. Thus Terry (Voy. E. Ind., 1622 (ed. 1777), 

 89-90) says the " beeves " differ from ours in being smaller and in 

 having " each of them a great bunch of grisly flesh which grows upon the 

 meeting of their shoulders." He then adds that the flesh is very sweet 

 and tender. 



There are few subjects in which India is so very backward as those 

 of Cattle-breeding and Dairy Farming, hence the available literature 

 is comparatively insignificant and defective when judged of in the 

 light of their importance. This is the more surprising since, with a large 

 proportion of the people of India, the cow is the most sacred of all 

 animals. In the Ain-i-Akbari (1590) special mention is made of the 

 veneration in which it is held. Linschoten (Voy. E. Ind., 1598, i., 257, 

 300), Bernier (Travels, 1656-68, in Constable, Or. Misc., i., 326-7), Tavernier 

 (Travels Ind., 1676 (ed. Ball), ii., 217), and many other European travellers 

 in India, dwell on the sacred character of the Indian cow. It might 

 naturally, therefore, have been expected that the cow, and some at least 

 of the products it affords, would have existed in even a higher or more 

 fully developed condition than is the case in most other countries. 



While there are certain Indian breeds of cattle that compare favourably 

 with those of other parts of the world, most are inferior in size and strength 

 as well as in quantity of meat and milk which they provide. The breeds 

 vary directly with the soil, climate and food of the countries in which they 

 live. For example, in deltaic tracts the oxen are inferior but the buffaloes 

 superior. Meagher and Vaughan very rightly observe : " The great 

 variations in the Indian climate largely affect the milk yield of cattle 

 imported from foreign districts. Hansi-Hissar cows will not prove as 

 satisfactory say in Jabbalpur, as they will in Delhi or Meerut, and this 

 should be borne in mind before condemning the Hansi-Hissar breed. It 

 appears to be a fact that the further they travel east or south (i.e. the 

 damper the climate becomes), the more certain is the decrease in the 

 yield." Climate, soil and available food in fact influence so rapidly the 

 breeds of cattle that it becomes undesirable to extend schemes of im- 

 provement very much beyond selection from existing stock within each 

 area. Indeed for the plains of Lower India, crosses of foreign strains, 

 more especially from Europe, have proved highly unsatisfactory. The 

 chief difficulty is to overcome the opposition that exists in transferring, 

 without loss of special merit, the stocks even of one part of India to another. 

 If the intention be to improve, as heavy draught animals, the breeds of the 

 Panjab, Gujarat and Mysore afford ample material : if the desire be for 

 swiftness, the trotting bullocks of the Central Provinces and of South 

 India (gainis) are unsurpassed anywhere : and, if milch-cows be sought, 

 there are several famed breeds, such as the Nellore or Ongole and the 

 Gir of Kathiawar and the Hansi-Hissar of the Panjab. In the Ain-i- 

 Atibari (Blocbmann, transl., 149) special mention is made of the Gujarat 

 breed of cattle and of the small swift-footed gainis. This is curiously 

 confirmed by Ralph Fitch (in Purchas' Pilgrimes, 1625, ii., 1733), who, while 

 telling of his visit to the Emperor Akbar in 1585, specially mentions the 

 carved and gilded carts of Agra and Fatehpur drawn by " two little bulb 



734 



