REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



407 



Table showing the estimated number and value of cattle on farms in the United 

 States January 1, 1888 Continued. 



The marked difference in value of the cattle in different parts of 

 the country results from several causes. Climate and soil, with 

 consequent cheapness or dearness of cattle foods, have had much in- 

 fluence, but much of the present variation in quality is dependent 

 upon differences in the foundation stock and the interest taken in its 

 improvement. The cattle brought to the more northern States were 

 generally from Great Britain ; those in the most southern and south- 

 western regions came largely from Spain. The former were of higher 

 average merit, and have had better care and more attention to sys- 

 tematic improvement than have the latter, more especially until 

 within quite recent years. 



It is a remarkable fact that there is no generally recognized breed 

 of improved cattle which has had its origin in the United States. 

 The common or misnamed " native" cattle of different sections often 

 have such distinctive characteristics as to entitle them to be classed 

 as distinct breeds, but they are not of high merit, unless, indeed, in 

 adaptation to local conditions, which are often very unfavorable. 



Coupled with better care and wiser selection of breeding animals 

 from the stock on hand, large attention has been given, for the last fifty 

 or sxty years, to the importation and subsequent breeding of pure- 

 bred cattle of the most prized breeds of Great Britain, and in much 

 less degree to those of a few breeds from western continental Europe. 

 Of the breeds so introduced may be named : Ayrshire, Devon, Gallo- 

 way, Hereford, Holstein-Friesian or Holland, Jersey, Polled Angus 

 or Aberdeen, Red Polled or Norfolk and Suffolk Polled, Shorthorn 

 or Durham, Sussex, and a very few Swiss, West Highland, Kerry, 

 and Normandy cattle, and even a few from India and China. 



Of these breeds the Shorthorn has had by far the most influence 

 in improving the cattle of the country, especially for beef produc- 

 tion. Among the first to be introduced and kept pure, it soon 

 gained wide popularity, and is still the most widely distributed and 

 by far the most numerous of the improved breeds of the country. 

 More than 90,000 pure-bred bulls of this breed have had their pedi- 



