CHAPTER XVI 



STOCK 



As this book is not intended as a handbook for the practical 

 field agriculturist, there is no need to go in any way into the 

 question of the different kinds of stock of all sorts that are to 

 be found in the tropics, nor the ways of feeding them. There 

 is a very great variety of different breeds of cattle, sheep, pigs, 

 horses, goats, and poultry in the tropics, more especially in 

 India, and it would lead too far to describe them. 



Cattle are used in the tropics mainly for draught, drawing 

 carts, ploughs, trotting carriages, etc., and the great majority 

 of the breeds have been evolved for this purpose, most of them 

 being of the zebu type, with a large hump behind the neck, 

 upon which the yoke pulls. Milk cattle are comparatively 

 rare, the bulk of the milk used coming from the draught 

 cattle, which will not as a rule yield milk unless the calf be 

 allowed to remain with them, a fact which still further reduces 

 the already small amount of milk. 



Speaking generally, the best breeds, whether of cattle or of 

 sheep, have been produced in those districts where there is 

 plenty of grazing land, as for instance in Gujarat and other 

 parts of the north of India. As we pass south, into the 

 Dekkan, where there is little grazing land, and a somewhat 

 precarious rainfall, or into Travancore and Ceylon, where there 

 is hardly any proper grazing land at all, and too much rain, 

 the breeds generally deteriorate. In Brazil, the best breeds of 

 cattle, and the chief dairying industry, are in the highlands of 

 the south, while in the north they are but poor. 



The best breeds, also, are in the districts where large herds 

 or flocks are found under the care of men who are practically 



