338 THE OX. 



spots which elsewhere would be considered insufficient to 

 maintain the poorest labourer. The people cultivate cider as 

 the principal subject of export, and fruits of different kinds ; 

 and in an especial manner, lucerne, clover, potatoes, carrots, 

 parsnips, turnips, and cole, for the food of their cows. They 

 cultivate, likewise, pease and the cereal grains, and reap 

 abundant returns. Their land never lies fallow for a season, 

 but is either in patches of fertile meadow, or yields continued 

 crops in the manner of a garden. They manure it with the 

 marine plants which grow in great abundance over all their 

 rocky shores. The sea-plants thus collected, they term Vraic, 

 and use either fresh or burned. They obtain their vraic as 

 it is cast on shore, or they shear it from the rocks at stated 

 times. The periods and the mode of gathering it are nicely 

 regulated by the insular laws, so that all the people may 

 equally partake of this natural gift of their seas. It forms 

 their domestic fuel, and the ashes are carefully preserved 

 for use. The Cow, in an especial degree, is the subject of 

 the care of these island farmers. She is penned on a narrow 

 space, and shifted to fresh spots of herbage several times in 

 the day, and in the nights of winter she is warmly housed, 

 and, when about to calve, is nourished with cider. Through- 

 out all the year these little cows are to be seen in their 

 patches of meadow, often under the shade of the apple-trees, 

 and so fastened that they cannot raise their heads to pull 

 the fruit. In addition to their herbage, they are fed with 

 lucerne, clover, carrots, parsnips, and the large Jersey cole, 

 the leaves of which are stripped off as they grow. A value 

 is here attached to the Cow greater, perhaps, than in any 

 other part of Europe. She is the resource of the household 

 for food, and her surplus produce is a part of the returns of 

 every farm. A Jersey man, it is said, will treat every ani- 

 mal on his farm with neglect except his cow. To preserve 

 the purity of the race, an act of the insular Legislature was 

 passed in the year 1789, and yet subsists, by which the impor- 

 tation into Jersey of any cow, heifer, calf, or bull, is prohibited 



