cows FOR THE DAIRY. 37 



off to beef without loss. This use, however, seems at 

 present quite -distant, for the high price of the stock and 

 its scarcity forbids it, and will do so for many years to 

 come. 



The Jersey Breed has taken the most prominent 

 position in the dairy during the past ten or twelve years. 

 Previously it was the fashionable cow of the rich amateur 

 farmer who could afford to pay huDdreds of dollars for 

 one of these elegant animals as an ornament to his lawn 

 and well kept pasture, and for the supply of cream and 

 butter for his domestic use. Gradually it became the 

 fashion for these wealthy persons to establish fancy dai- 

 ries, and to make the choicest quality of butter, which 

 was put up in attractive forms, for sale to consumers who 

 could well afford to pay a dollar per pound for a product 

 which was certainly known to be clean, pure, and of the 

 most perfect flavor and appearance. It was a new depart- 

 ure in dairying, and has had a most beneficial influence 

 in compelling the makers of butter to follow the example 

 set in this way, or in inducing them to do so, in the hope 

 of securing higher prices for their product. A wholly 

 new business, commonly known as fancy butter making, 

 has sprung up, and this has led to the extensive intro- 

 duction of winter dairying and a large variety of im- 

 proved apparatus. It is a new instance of the improve- 

 ment in agricultural methods which has been brouglit 

 about by the use of improved stock; and just as the Ayr- 

 shire breed in Scotland, or the Dutch breed in Holland, 

 induced a remarkable change for the better in the past- 

 ures and in the culture of the soil, as well as in the farm 

 buildings — and by reflection, as it were, in the farmers 

 themselves — so the Jersey cow has revolutionized the but- 

 ter dairy, and has improved it more in the past ten years 

 than every other influence had done from the beginning 

 up to that time. 



The Jersey cow, sometimes wrongly called Alderney, 



