DUTCH CATTLE. 127 



fill the places of those destroyed by the plague, small Dauish 

 breeds and German cows of a diminutive size were substituted 

 and crossed with the remaining and recovered Natives. 



"They were," says Scheltma,* "Danish, Holstein and small 

 German cows, of Avhich the greater part were smaller in size 

 than the native race." In the same Avork we also find, " that 

 one was reduced to the necessity, in 1769, of purchasing the 

 needful cattle in the county of Bentheim, in the districts of 

 Oldenburg and Munster, in Hanover and other parts of 

 Germany." 



In the work, "Present State of Friesland," it is mentioned 

 that, " owing to the cattle-plague, the people were compelled 

 to import from abroad all kinds of small cattle, chiefly Danish. 

 But, what was remarkable, however small and ill-favored 

 these animals might be, when compared with the handsome 

 Friesian horned-cattle, as a natural consequence, an improve- 

 ment of food induced a favorable development of body, and, 

 from the mixture of the two breeds, good and choice milch- 

 kine were attained within two or three generations of the 

 introduction of the foreign blood, no matter how much the 

 race had in the beginning deteriorated through the process, 

 and, eventually, the type of Danish and German cattle was 

 quite lost." This is, however, already one hundred years 

 ago. 



A fair consideration of what has been thus for stated will 

 leave no justification of the "herd-book's," imputation upon 

 the antiquity and purity of descent of our Friesian or Dutch 

 cattle ; or its assumption, that they are of Holstein origin. 

 No ; the genealogy of Netherland cattle is pure and unadul- 

 terated, and it is at least 2,000 years old. 



I come noAV to the present time, and the question whether 

 it is tenable to give to one variety of cattle the name of an 

 entire group, and to reckon as appertaining to it all its several 

 varieties or breeds, — as, for instance, the Dutch, Friesian, 

 Oldenburg, Holstein, etc., — and would it not be imperative in 

 such a case to give it the purely historical name by which it 

 is generally known? If it could be desirable to give a 

 general name to the cattle of the just-mentioned districts, 



* p. C. Scheltma. Treatise of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Vol. 

 XV., part 2, p. 3. Compare also " Cattle," Vol. II., p. 61. 



