DUAL PURPOSE CATTLE 51 



The published .milk records in England have been set down in 

 the Herd Book for each year in succession since the autumn of 1890. 

 The student of my transcript will recognize that where the first calf's 

 record is mentioned it represents the heifer's yield from the date 

 of birth to the last day of the 365, which is the standard close of the 

 year in that particular herd the end of September, October, or De- 

 cember. That where my transcript begins with second calf the rec- 

 ord includes part of the yield of the heifer after the birth of the first 

 calf, the dry term of days, and the early portion of the yield after 

 the birth of the second calf, and so on for each year named. Where 

 theire has been set down the average yield of a named number of 

 years, the number of days of the milk yield period is within paren- 

 theses. The student is thus able to note how far the claim of the 

 Red Polled to be "a great stayer" is borne out in that particular in- 

 stance. It is a fact worth noting that there are in not a few herds 

 instances of continuous milk yielding two or more years while giving 

 birth to a calf each year. To name one instance only, Mr. R. Harvey 

 Mason's 19220 Gemma N4, whose record and breed analysis are set 

 down in a previous page From Jan. 1st of her 2d year, 1907, milked 

 continuously, well into 1911, and then was dry 28 days only, while 

 the year's total was 9,878 Ibs. for 337 days. This quality of stead- 

 fastness has been the recommendation of the Red Polled to many a 

 purchaser in all lands. It must also be noted that not a few of the 

 cattle hold up the milk for some days after being shaken in a railway 

 train, so that it is a fallacy to cite a day or even two days' testing 

 in a show-yard as demonstration of the value of that particular cow. 

 The fact has been known many a year. Proof may be read in the 

 Herd Book of 1900 (Vol. 17 British edition, Vol. 12 American edition), 

 in a report made to the then Secretary by Mr. A. D. Bruce, who had 

 been Steward of the Norfolk Agricultural Association Show at Diss 

 in 1899. 



Steadfastness, which term may be honestly used as a character- 

 istic of the present-day Red Polled, may be deemed to be a modern 

 development of an inherent quality that had not been fostered. We 

 have Arthur Young, in his "Minutes" dated January, 1786, protesting 

 against certain High Suffolk practices. 



These three points (1) two-year-old bulls, (2) two-year-old cows, (3) not 

 weaning their first calves are fully sufficient to account for the smallness of the 

 breed here. But it must be admitted, that if they can get as much milk from a 

 small cow as from a large one, they are not for this to be condemned. . . How- 

 ever we may condemn their management, upon these ideas of breeding, as exerted 

 in the Midland Counties, where the greatest attention is paid to every circumstance; 

 still, we must admit what cannot be denied, that they possess the best race of milk- 

 ers that are known in this island: that their profits, considering the size of their 

 cows, are equal, if not superior, to any known ; and that in their food, and in the 

 management of their dairies, I know nothing more perfect. 



The talk at Wheycurd Hall by Young and Reeve cannot have 

 been without full consideration of these particulars. John Reeve's 

 first evidence of his new work was a bull two years old, which bull 

 he again showed when four years old. Again, during 26 years he 

 exercised his superior judgment in the selection of cows and bulls, 

 which met his ideal of what was then termed the "general purpose" 

 cow. The now generally adopted term had been used in the form 

 "breeds claiming dual purpose character" in the report on the Pan- 

 American Exposition drafted by Mr. J. McLain Smith, of Dayton, 

 Ohio, for presentation to the "Red Polled Cattle Club" when it met 

 at Chicago on December 4th, 1901. (The old-fashioned term has, by 



