10 



available. Heifer calves are neglected and underfed. The bulls 

 are put to the work of terracing and embanking the slopes and 

 ravines by which the area of cultivation is extended. If not sold 

 before the age of 4 they are castrated, and owing to the risk 

 attending the operation an owner will often ask and sometimes 

 obtain a higher price for the animal as a bullock than as a bull. 



This source of supply, owing to its inaccessibility has only 

 been drawn upon in comparatively recent years. But the breed 

 is now well-known and the bulls are in demand for tracts where 



the heavier Hariana animal is unsuited to the small indigenous 

 stock. Thus the riverain tracts of the Ajnala tehsil, and the 

 Gurdaspur and Ferozepore districts are now importing Talagang- 

 Potwar bulls, and large numbers of bulls and bullocks are disposed 

 of yearly at the Gulu 8hah fair in Sialkot and at the Amritsar 



I fairs for use in the districts of the Central Punjab. They have 

 also been largely imported by settlers from the northern districts 

 into the Jhelum and Lyallpur colonies, and find a ready sale at 

 the Lyallpur fairs. The good prices obtained are inducing the 

 Awans to sell off their locally bred cattle and replace them by 

 the inferior animals brought by traders from down country 

 fairs, and there is evidently a danger of the breed deteriorating 



i under stress of the increasing demand. 



In the Western Punjab the only breeding centres of any 

 ") The Western value lying within the boundaries of the province 

 breeding centres. are the two southern tahsils of the Dera Ghazi 

 I Khan district, including the Eohjan country, the territories of the 

 Mazari Chiefs. In reality these two tahsils form the northern 

 limit of the great breeding tracts of Balochistan and the Sukkur 

 District. Just as the north-west of the Punjab is supplied from 

 the Dhanni-Potwar tracts, and the south from Hariana, so the 

 best cattle of the western districts, Multan, Muzaffargarh and the 

 Derajat are imported from the Sukkur and Balochistan country 

 on the west bank of Indus, which may thus be classed as the 

 third source of supply. The most noted western breeding centre 

 actually within the boundaries of the Punjab is the neighbourhood 

 ^ of Dajal in the Jampur tehsil, but the breed of this tract is 

 merely an offshoot of the famous Bhagnari breed, found in 

 the Bhag tehsil near Sibbi, and owes its ^origin to a number of 

 Bhagnari bulls specially imported into Dajal about 80 years ago. 



The characteristics of the Bhagnari cattle are given in Captain 

 Pease's " Breeds of Punjab Cattle. " 



" These cattle are by far the best bred for draught purposes 

 I have yet seen in the Punjab. They are above medium stature 



