68 Milk and Its Products 
Dutch race has prevented the importation of animals 
from other countries, and so the race has been kept 
practically pure, some authorities say for as much 
as two hundred and fifty years. The Dutch eattle 
have been developed very largely upon grass in lux- 
uriant pastures in the summer time, and on hay, 
supplemented with very little grain, in the winter. 
This has resulted in developing an animal of large 
size, capable of yielding a large flow of milk, but 
milk not very rich in fat, which is the prominent 
eharacteristic of this race of cattle. 
Holstein cattle are large in size, ranking well up 
with the Shorthorn, Hereford and other beef breeds. 
They are inclined to have straight bones, long faces, 
straight, sometimes rather long legs, and straight 
backs. Many animals, however, have a distinct droop 
to the rump from the hip to the- root of the tail, 
which breeders constantly select against. 
In color, Holstein cattle are black and white, and 
in any proportion, running from almost pure white to 
almost pure black, and, in cases where the colors are 
more equally distributed, the colors may be finely 
broken up, or may be in large patches. Most Ameri- 
can breeders prefer an animal rather more than half 
white, with the black and white colors in rather large 
areas. Peculiarities of coloring, either in propor- 
tions or markings, do not run very strongly in fam- 
ily. lines, and an animal that is largely white may, 
and often does, produce offspring in which black is 
the predominating color, and vice versa. 
Holstein cattle were introduced into the United 
