CHAPTER XXXIII 



THE GUERNSEY 



The native home of Guernsey cattle" is on the islands of Guern- 

 sey and Alderney, in the Channel Islands group. Guernsey is 

 seventy-eight miles southeast of Weymouth on the coast of 

 England, twenty-eight miles from France, and twenty-two miles 

 northwest from the island of Jersey. Four islands, Guernsey, 

 Alderney, Sark, and Herm, while under the British sover- 

 eignty, are under the local government of Guernsey. The island 

 of Guernsey is roughly triangular in form, about nine miles in 

 its greatest length, and five in its extreme width. While most 

 of the coast is rocky and precipitous, that of the south shore is 

 especially so, the cliffs rising to a height of 270 feet, the land 

 roughly sloping northward to a low beach. The island has an 

 area of 15,560 acres, of which about 10,000 are under cultiva- 

 tion. There are ten parishes on the island, and, like Jersey, a 

 lieutenant-governor represents the British crown, while a bailiff 

 acts as president of the local government. There is a population 

 of about 45,000 on Guernsey, and St. Peter Port is the only 

 town of consequence. The people, besides producing cattle, make 

 a specialty of crops under glass, such as grapes, tomatoes, musk- 

 melons, cut flowers, etc., largely for the London market. It is 

 said 1 that if the greenhouses now on the island were placed 

 end to end, they would reach eight hundred miles, probably 

 an extravagant statement, but indicative of the extent of culture 

 under glass on the island. The cattle on Guernsey are kept in 

 small herds and generally tethered when on pasture, grazing 

 systematically and making good use of all food. 



The origin of the Guernsey, like that of the Jersey, is quite 

 obscure, but is supposed by many to have been derived from the 

 cattle of Brittany and Normandy of near-by France. Mr. Hill refers 2 



1 Charles L. Hill, The Guernsey Breed, p. 22. Waterloo, Iowa, 1917. 



2 Ibid. p. 31. 



