CHAPTER XX. 



THE JERSEY BREED OF CATTLE. 



By JOHN M. HALL. 



EESEY, the largest of the Channel Islands group, 

 whose entire cultivated area, 20,000 acres, is not 

 one-fourth of Rutlandshire, supported in 1885 

 12,217 head of cattle, of which 6843 were animals 

 in milk. The annual export of cattle from the island amounts 

 to about 2000 head. Of the origin of the breed little is known ^ 

 but since 1763, when the first of a series of Acts prohibiting 

 importation of cattle from France was passed, the island blood 

 has been kept practically pure. No systematic effort had been 

 made to raise the general standard of the breed, either as 

 regards appearance or profit, prior to 1833-34, when the Royal 

 Agricultural Society of Jersey was founded, and its first show 

 held. From this date commences the visible upward movement 

 of the breed amongst dairy tribes, a movement which in sub- 

 sequent years was accelerated by the foundation of farmers' 

 clubs in the various parishes (1852-60), by the formation of the 

 Herd Book Society (1866), and recently by the establishment 

 of the Jersey Dairy Farmers' Association, which held its first 

 show in 1884. 



In England the early history of the breed is obscured by the 

 perverse misapplication of the term " Alderneys." The island 

 of Alderney exports 100 head of cattle where Jersey exports 

 2000. Yet to this day Jerseys and G-uernseys are still popularly 

 included in the named "Alderneys." Channel Islands cattle 

 were imported to this country in the first half of the eighteenth 

 century. Fourteen animals delivered at Goodwood in 1747 cost 



