10 HOLSTEIN -FR1ESI AN CATTLE. 



the Friesian cattle at this time were a pure white and from the cross of 

 the two the foundation of the present Holstein-Friesian breed was laid. What- 

 ever may have been the fact, the cattle of these two tribes henceforth appear 

 identical in history. The Roman historians, who wrote at the beginning of the 

 Christian era, speak of these tribes as owning many cattle. Caesar says, " they 

 used them in traffic with one another and gave them as dowry to their 

 children." Tacitus repeats the information, but says that *' their cattle did not 

 excel in beauty." Very little is said of their appearance and characteristics. 

 We learn, however, that some of them were white and that cattle of this color 

 were held in religious veneration. From this we naturally infer that white 

 cattle were not common and that the great majority were then piebald as at 

 the present day. The conditions under which they were kept must have ren- 

 dered them rough and uncouth in appearance. The system of diking and 

 draining that has made the provinces of North Holland and Friesland one of 

 the best grass producing sections of the earth was then scarcely begun and the 

 whole country must have been largely a succession of lakes, marshes, sand-hills 

 and fertile strips along the water courses, subject to frequent inundation. 

 Grasses poor in quality, dwarf on the sand hills and rank in the marshes, must 

 have prevailed and constituted their only food, both in summer and in winter. 

 The limited forests that may have existed in some sections may have afforded 

 them partial shelter from the terrible storms that swept over the country from 

 the North Sea. Yet we conclude that their owners, from the earliest times, 

 were compelled to share their own rude dwellings with them in the severest 

 weather. About the beginning of the Christian era these two tribes came 

 virtually under the Roman yoke, although in the form of an alliance with the 

 Roman power. The Friesians from this time forward, to the close of the Roman 

 power, paid an annual tax of ox hides and ox horns to the Roman government. 

 In lieu of this tax the Batavians furnished a contingent of soldiers to the 

 Roman army, commanded by their own officers, which became especially dis- 

 tinguished in the various Roman wars. In this contrast of action the two 

 tribes are illustrated very plainly in character. The Friesians in their love of 

 pastoral pursuits preferred the breeding of cattle to the honors of war. The 

 love which has always characterized them has bound them together and kept 

 them a distinct people for more than two thousand years. It has also made 

 them most conservative and has kept them breeding the same strain of cattle 

 unadulterated, except from accidental circumstances, from the earliest 

 knowledge of them to the present time. Rich river bottoms were protected 

 from the flood, lakes and bays reclaimed and the well-known Polders appeared, 

 whose inexhaustible fruitfulness still makes the meadows of the Netherlands 

 unsurpassed in the production of grass, cattle and dairy products. During the 

 thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the production of but- 

 ter and cheese, especially in the provinces of North and South Holland, was sim- 

 ply enormous, and history tells, also, of remarkably heavy meat cattle, weighing 

 from twenty-six hundred to three thousand pounds, and presented to princes 

 and warriors in these turbulent times. 



With the Roman dominion came Roman improvements in the system of 

 cattle raising, but no mixture of blood in the people or in the cattle. Diking 

 and draining were systematized and greatly extended. Many of the great allu- 

 vial meadows, which distinguished this lowland country, were then produced. 

 Improved methods of feeding and management of cattle followed. The 

 dwellings became immense structures, designed as much for the protection of 

 cattle as for the comfort of the family. Larger estates were occupied. Prof. 

 Hengerveld describes one of these ancient estates, several of which remain at 

 the present time : " The Manor House, with its various stables, was surrounded 

 by kitchen gardens, parks, meadows, duck ponds, dikes, canals and ditches; 

 by peasant cottages, with their cow stables and granaries, while the whole was 

 enclosed in the encircling of some river formation." He continues: "It is true 

 from that time to the present many changes have been effected, and the estates 

 are less extensive, but in the main everything shows imitation of the ancient 

 Roman villa." He says, in substance, that the method and purpose for which 

 they have continued breeding cattle to the present time have essentially 

 remained unchanged. The preservation of the Friesian people and their con- 

 tinued adhesion to cattle breeding for more than two thousand years is one of 

 the marvels of history. Always few in number, the conflicts of war and 

 commerce have raged over and around them, yet they have remained in or near 



