206 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



for symmetry, and they rarely show vicious temper. They have a fine 

 curved taper horn, a slender nose, a fine shin, and deer-like form. Of 

 the different island breeds the Alderuey is the smallest and most deli- 

 cate, and the Jersey is somewhat larger, but not very different. The 

 Guernsey cattle are larger boned, taller, and stouter in all respects, and 

 have a less fine coat. The color of the coat is very various, being com- 

 monly red, red and white, gray and white, or cream colored, but there 

 are good beasts of black, and black and white color, with a dingy ridge 

 down the back. All the cattle are yellow round the eyes, and within 

 the ears, and this peculiar tendency, it has been already remarked, is 

 accompanied by a similar color of the butter made from their milk, and 

 of their fat when killed. The cause of this peculiarity of color has been 

 an object of much unlearned and learned speculation. It is evident that 

 the milk is not the only secretion of a yellow color, for in addition to the 

 eyes and ears being tinted, it is one of the peculiarities of the best ani- 

 mals that there is a yellow tinge at the root of the tail. It has been 

 suggested that the color is derived from bile, but yellowness is not the 

 essential character of that secretion. Its properties are to be bitter, 

 carbonized, and to perform certain functions in the animal economy. 

 Colorless bile is possible, and so, beyond a doubt, is yellowness without 

 bile. But that the coloring matter of the milk and tissues of the Chan- 

 nel Islands cow may also be the coloring matter of the bile is an hypoth- 

 esis which no physiologist would condemn, so is the doctrine that the 

 near vicinity of the sen may supply an excess of soda in the grass, and 

 that the practice of closely tethering, by limiting the amount of exercise, 

 may engender a tendency to something akin to bile, if not bile itself, to 

 be in excess. The large yield of milk from the island cows and the rich- 

 ness of the milk for butter are well known. Extreme cases show that 

 from 16 to 17 pounds per week of butter have been made from the milk 

 of one cow. The cattle are fed in the ordinary way, and milked three 

 times a day. Each cow requires about If English acres of grass land, 

 and is fed during winter, from the beginning of November, on mangel- 

 wurzel, turnips, parsnips, and hay. Good cheese can be made from the 

 milk, but it is not manufactured for sale. 



THOMAS EENOUF, 



Consular Agent. 

 UNITED STATES CONSULAR AGENCY, 



Jersey, February 20, 1885. 



Products of Jersey cattle." 

 [Inclosure in Consular Agent Eenouf's report.] 



Name of breed : Jerseys ; annual average pounds of milk : 2,400 ; milk to pounds of 

 cheese: not made, milk being too riclj; name of country: Jersey, Channel Islands; 

 size at maturity : cow : length, 7 feet ; girth, 6 feet ; height, 4 feet 2 inches ; bull : 

 length, 7 feet ; girth, 6 feet 10 inches ; height, 4 feet 6 inches ; live weight of cow : 

 1,000 pounds; live weight of bull: 1^200 pounds; age at maturity: 3 to 3 years; 

 weight of meat at maturity: bull, 800 pounds; cow, 580 pounds; origin of breed: 

 Jersey, no animals being allowed to be imported except for slaughtering purposes, so 

 that the breed is kept pure ; few QOWS are slaughtered at maturity or in condition ; 

 if barren they do not feed well, and when in milk difficult to fatten, owing to their 

 great yeld of milk ; the average price of butter is Is. 3d. per pound. 



Topography : Altitude, 139 feet above sea level ; mean temperature, 51 9' ; maxi- 

 mum, 87 7' ; minimum, 21 3'; soil: loam, clay, sand, and gravel. 



*The Jersey pound is 8J- per cent, heavier than the English pound. 



