440 CATTLE 



The grazing value of the Kerry is very high. This breed has 

 been developed under adverse food conditions and thrives on com- 

 paratively poor rations. It well serves the purpose of furnishing 

 the poor Irish laborer a maximum of return for a minimum of 

 expenditure. 



The Kerry as a milk producer ranks well, considering her size 

 and cost of production. Messrs. William and James McDonald, 

 reporting on the Kerry cattle shown at the Paris Exposition in 

 1878, state that twelve quarts of milk daily during the season and 

 from six to seven pounds of butter a week are the estimated 

 yield of a Kerry cow, and that cows have been known to give 

 sixteen quarts every day for some time after calving. Only in 

 recent years have any systematic efforts been made to keep milk 

 or butter-fat records of these cows. In 1905 Professor James Long 

 wrote as follows, relative to official trials l : 



If we take the milking trials at the National Dairy Show at Islington, and 

 travel over a number of years, we find that in one year eight Kerries averaged 

 36 pounds, or more than 3^ gallons of milk per day, this milk containing 

 3-33 P er c&nt fat. In another year twelve Kerries averaged 25! pounds of 

 milk per day, this milk containing the large proportion of 4.33 per cent of fat, 

 while the solids not fat reached 9.2 per cent. Again, in a third year, seven 

 Kerries averaged 33^ pounds of milk, containing 3.69 per cent fat. In two 

 other years the averages of ten cows in each year were 27^ pounds of milk 

 and 33 pounds of milk, the fat percentage in one case 4.36, and in the other 4.26. 



In official tests in 1916 and 1917 in Ireland, under the super- 

 vision of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruc- 

 tion for Ireland, records ranged from 4812 pounds of milk as a 

 minimum to 8124 pounds as a maximum yield, forty-five weeks 

 being the extreme period of lactation. The butter-fat percentage 

 ranged from 3.4 to 4.9, the average being 4 per cent. From what 

 the author has seen of these cattle in Ireland he believes the Kerry 

 to be a milk-producing breed of much promise under a judicious 

 system of breeding and selection. 



The distribution of the Kerry is not general ; even in Ireland, 

 where it is best known, the Shorthorn is the leading breed. There 

 are a number of excellent Kerry herds in England, but very few 

 of these cattle have been imported to America. There are small 



1 Agricultural Gazette (London), August 21, 1905. 



