28 DAIRY CATTLE AND MILK PRODUCTION 



farmer. To-day no fruit is grown, and very little grain. The 

 caring for cows, growing and preparing feed for them, and 

 utilizing the milk for butter and cheese manufacture monop- 

 olizes the attention of the farmers. 



This breed is best developed in its native home, the prov- 

 ince of Friesland and across the Zuyder Zee in North 

 Holland. This breed has been the parent stock of several 

 others, which through local influences have been somewhat 

 modified from the original. Most prominent among these 

 are the Oldenburg, East Friesian, East Prussian-Holland, and 

 the Flanders of Belgium. 



The Holland cattle, or their descendants in these latter 

 mentioned sub-breeds, are now distributed over a large 

 portion of North Europe, extending into Russia. In the 

 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Holland cattle were 

 taken to England, where, according to Professor Low, the 

 eminent English authority, they were a factor in the forma- 

 tion of the Teeswater or Shorthorn breed, from which our 

 modern improved Shorthorns are descended. It is also 

 believed by good authorities that Holland blood was an im- 

 portant factor in the foundation stock from which the pres- 

 ent Ayrshire breed is descended. 



Conditions in Holland. The best part of Holland is 

 mostly below the level of the sea, which is kept out by enor- 

 mous dykes. The land is very fertile, and almost entirely 

 used for growing grass. The farmers, who are mostly tenants, 

 pay from $30 per acre upwards annual rent. The land, 

 which is seldom bought or sold, is valued at from $ 800 to 

 $2000 per acre. 



In no other part of the world does the cow receive such 

 careful attention as in Holland. The cattle are placed in 



