78 THE COW 



Of our nearly twenty breeds, only eight can be 

 regarded as important so far as numbers are con- 

 cerned. The four beef breeds that really compete 

 for supremacy in the corn-belt country and that 

 furnish the T-bone steak and prime ribs of beef 

 for a hungry world are the Shorthorn, Hereford, 

 Aberdeen-Angus and Galloway. There are four 

 great special-purpose dairy breeds, all widely 

 known and possessing individuals of the highest 

 excellence. These are the Holstein, Jersey, Guern- 

 sey and Ayrshire. 



The Holstein, coming from Holland, is pre- 

 eminently the great milk breed, her particular 

 characteristic being the ability to give large 

 amounts of mUk containing a rather low percen- 

 tage of butter-fat. Under the conditions and basis 

 of payment that prevails in the liquid milk market, 

 this big black-and-whit^ cow threatens to drive 

 other breeds from the field. She has, on the whole, 

 remained especially the cow of the practical work- 

 ing farmer rather than the rich man's hobby. She 

 has large size, vigor, hardiness and ability to 

 utilize profitably great quantities of rough forage ; 

 and while her milk may lack the percentage of fat 

 suitable for the most discriminating markets, she 

 is all in all the most popular breed in the world. 

 Perhaps we may paraphrase the famous expression 

 regarding the Concord grape and say that she is 

 the cow for the millions. 



It is remarkable that a tiny group of islands in 



