6G6 CATTLK AND DAIKY FAKMIXG. 



third year. The color is generally a dark red, sometimes ]>iebald. 

 Limbs arc >hort and bones small. Horns arc short, nearly straight, 

 blunt ami ugly in ibrm. usually of about equal si/e from base to tip. 

 Milk and its components arc little used bylhe people, and I cannot 

 learn that butter or cheese is ever "made, in this part of the Empire at 

 least. The only estimate to be relied upon thai 1 can give of their 

 milking- qualities I have obtained of a foreigner, who keeps a small dairy 

 to accommodate the foreign population with milk only. From his ex- 

 perience about 3 quarts per day is the highest average. The flesh 

 makes good beef when decently led, but the animals are not killed until 

 they are past breeding and too old for "work. The dried skin weighs 

 about 117 to LS pounds, and the, bones and offal are comparatively small. 

 Calves are small, and the first \ear develop slowly. One familiar with 

 line milkers in the United States is surprised at the very small udders 

 of ihese cows, and their teats are very small and diminutive. The milk 

 veins, however, arc large, and whether culture and careful breeding 

 would develop profitable qualities only experimental trial can decide. 

 The origin of the breed I cannot discover, but, from all 1 can learn, it 

 seems to have been here as long as the- Chinaman himself. The current 

 value per head is not over ten and a half gold dollars. 



THE -\VATKll BUFFALO OF THE YAXG-TSE. 



The water Buffalo is the only other bovine in this region. It is the 

 same animal that is iound in India and Kgypt. Webster's Unabridged 

 Dictionary, illustrated edition of 1S7S, has a quite accurate represen- 

 tation of th:.' animal. It is there described zoologically as u a species 

 of the genus Ijo* (LVs- Inbuilt*), originally from India, but now found in 

 most of the warmer countries of the eastern continent. It is larger and 

 less docile ihan the common ox. and is fond of marshy places and 

 rivers." This is a very correct idea of it. The cow is as large as a 

 common ox in the. United Stages, it is of a dun or slate color, with 

 coarse hair, bristly and sparse, it comes to maturity in the fourth 

 year, and gestates once in eight '-en months thereafter, producing eight 

 or nine calves in a life-time, which is about eighteen years. The young 

 are broken to v;oi k in the second year, and the cows are quite as much 

 used for milk as the commoner small breed, yielding a third more. It 

 will perform double, the labor of (he small animals, and might be worth 

 testing as a draft animal, but it is not to be forgotten that it is very 

 sluggish at work, moving very slowly, and is not infrequently fierce 

 and intractable, it will ceitainly thrive on much poorer food than our 

 cattle- at home, and it makes very good beef. The average weight of 

 cows is 700 pounds, and of bulls and oxen 8.">0 to O.j() pounds. Its cur- 

 rent value is $15 to $1,S per head. 



MF/nioi>s OF nor SING AND FI;I;DJNG. 



When housed at all, bamboo sheds r.re provided poor affairs at the 

 best, and yet about as good as the people who own them occupy. 



i-'eeding for either class of the cattle described is only done in the 

 winter months, when vegeiaiion is destroyed; then wheat straw, rice 

 straw, vnid swrcf -potato vines are fed to them. The last are esteemed 

 the-- l)' 1 i. .. ;.!. In flie open season they arc, left to forage for them - 

 Helves, browsing upon wild grass, bamboo shoots, and the foliage of 

 the reeds that cover the marshes, or whatever else they can pickup. 

 They are uni esi j icu-d in range by either fence or wall, and when for- 



