EFFECT OF CROSSING WITH JERSEYS. 175 



gentlemen's lawns. But to-day every buyer who can obtain money to 

 purchase a calf wants it, and while, but a few years ago, the highest 

 price paid for the service of bulls was $5, to-day $250 is paid for some 

 bulls and even as high as $500 for animals of special families. 



Q. The cost of the Jersey to the average farmer in anything like a 

 fair herd would of course be beyond his means at the present time, 

 but would not the effect of a cross between a Jersey bull and an 

 Ayrshire or other good cow, for instance, be found of great advan- 

 tage? 



A. I have known a great many instances where the breeder has 

 crossed the Jersey bull and Ayrshire cow for the very purpose of get- 

 ting the best family cows, and certainly the result has proved to be 

 most satisfactory. Of course a herd in this way would cost very 

 much less, as the Ayrshire cow has not any excessive value. 



Q. What are the relative values of a pure Jersey cow and a pure 

 Ayrshire of the same quality ? 



A. While the Jersey cow of pure breed and pedigree would 

 now bring $1,500, the Ayrshire would bring only from $100 to $150. 

 I paid in 1876, at the Highland Society's Exhibition, $500 for one, 

 but since then the value of the Ayrshire has had a downward tend- 

 ency, as she has not been appreciated by wealthy farmers as the Jersey 

 has been, and so has not so high a market value. 



Q. What is the result when the Jersey is crossed with our common, 

 or, as sometimes called, native, cow? 



A. I think it was in 1876 that an old farmer, upwards of seventy 

 years of age, brought one of his cows to one of my Jersey bulls. The 

 cow brought him a heifer calf which he raised and bred, and which 

 in turn produced a oalf when a little over two years old. Nothing 

 remarkable was thought of the heifer until his wife ( who had a life- 

 time experience in butter making) stated one morning that she had 

 never had such a good churning of butter as she had had that morn- 

 ing. This sharpened the old gentleman's observation, and while 

 turning the cows into the yard loose to be milked, as is the custom 

 among our farmers here, he noticed that this heifer had a very large 

 and richly colored udder. He went back to the house, and told the 

 old lady that he guessed there must be something in Crozier's stock 

 after all; that he thought the cause of her extraordinary yield of 

 butter was in that heifer, and that to set the matter at rest she must 

 begin and gather a week's milk by itself and churn it. It was done, 

 and to the astonishment of the old gentleman, he had more butter 

 from the one heifer a little over two years old than he had from all of his 

 other three cows together. On the same day he came to my place 

 and said he had come to take back what he had said about my stock, 



