BELGIUM. 361 



made to improve all animals that either furnish beef or dairy products 

 for the people; as a result of this effort, it is doubtful whether there 

 now can be found any purely indigenous breeds in this country. There 

 are, however, several distinct varieties bred here, each generally con- 

 fined to a particular district of the country, characterized by some 

 peculiar quality of pasturage, soil, or climatic condition, 



THE FURNES-AMBACHT BREED. 



On the rich plains and poulders of East and West Flanders the pre- 

 vailing type of cattle is that known as the "Furnes-Ambacht" breed, 

 distinguished by handsome and well-proportioned forms, short legs, 

 moderately large, crooked horns, and usually of a red and white pie- 

 bald color. They are renowned for both the quantity and quality of 

 their dairy products throughout the Kingdom. 



THE ARDENNAISE BREED. 



Farther east and west, on the slopes and valleys of the foot-hills of 

 the Ardennes, where the soil chiefly consists of decomposed schist- 

 quartz and affords a less abundant yet nutritious herbage, there has 

 been bred, almost from time immemorial, another variety known as 

 the "Ardeunaise" stock. 



This breed is characterized, when not crossed with any other, by its 

 red color, small size, clean, smooth limbs, and long, sharp horns pro- 

 jecting forwards and surmounting a head carried well up, as though 

 always on the alert against surprise or danger. 



These animals are not usually good milkers, but produce rich and 

 well-flavored meat, doubtless more or less resulting from the character 

 of the herbage upon which they feed in this mountainous district. 



THE CHARLEROI BREED. 



In the Herve and Condroz districts, touching the German frontier on 

 the northeast, there formerly existed a variety of cattle much resembling 

 the Ardenuaise, excepting that they were almost uniformly of a black 

 and white piebald color ; butTwithin the last few years the introduction 

 of the Shorthorns into these districts has greatly changed both their 

 form and color, so that the pure Condroz race is now rapidly disappear- 

 ing and the present stock of that region, known as the Charleroi breed, 

 taking its place. 



FOREIGN AND CROSS BREEDS IN BELGIUM. 



These three varieties of cattle are all that can now, with any degree 

 of propriety, be denominated native breeds, and of them and their 

 crosses with the Shorthorn Durham, the Dutch Piebald, and a variety 

 from Cassel, almost the entire herds of the country are the progeny. 



Attracted by the rapid growth and splendid forms of the pure blood 

 English Shorthorns, the farmers, in almost every district of this King- 

 dom, have attempted to cultivate them to the exclusion of their native 

 stock, but with variable and by no means uniformly satisfactory re- 

 sults ; for they overlooked the facts that the valley of the Tees, the true 

 home of the Durham, abounds in rich pasturage and other cattle food 

 to a degree greatly exceeding most of the cattle-growing districts of 

 this country, and that the rapid growth and quick maturity of this 



