42 The Guernsey Breed 



"The difference, too, between the Jersey and the Guernsey has 

 become very much more marked of late years, both in size and colour, 

 and particularly of the head, horns, and nose. The Jersey is the 

 smaller animal, iiner in its limbs, neater m its frame, and more 

 thoroughbred looking in its appearance. The eye is bright, black, 

 often with a white rim, and the muzzle intensely black, also with a 

 light-coloured rim round it. This is one of the most striking dif- 

 ferences between the Jersey and Guernsey, the latter having usually 

 a flesh-coloured or stained nose, and a lightish yellow and_ white body, 

 being also larger of stature and coarser of limb. The yield of milk, 

 too, is larger in the Guernsey, yet there is little, if any, difference in 

 the yield of butter; indeed, some contend that the Jersey will yield 

 more butter and is a smaller consumer of food. Be this as it may, 

 there is no question as to the Guernsey giving the larger yield of 

 milk; and when large yields are spoken of as coming from an Alderney 

 cow, it is more often found to be from a Guernsey than a Jersey. 

 Guernsey cows have occasionally been taken into Jersey; but crosses 

 between the breeds have not been successful; the yellow colour and 

 pink nose usually crop up in the offspring, which retains a coarseness 

 at once detected and rejected by the island judges." 



The following notes, taken from Vol. I of the Herd Reg- 

 ister of the American Jersey Cattle Club, published in 1872, 

 will be of interest : 



"The Alderney cow has been held in high repute as a producer 

 of cream and butter ever since the days when Tabitha Bramble wrote, 

 in 1771, to Mrs. Gwyllim, housekeeper at Brambleton Hall: 'I am 

 astonished that Mr. Lewis should take upon him to give away Alder- 

 ney without my privity and concurrants. * * * Alderney gave 

 four gallons a day ever since the calf was sent to the market' " 



In 1844 Col. Le Couteur, the Queen's Aide-de-Camp in 

 Jersey, contributed to the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng- 

 land an essay on "The Jersey, misnamed Alderney, Cow," 

 which is here copied, nearly entire, from the Society's Journal, 

 Vol. v., page 43. 



"The breed of cattle familiarly known throughout Great Britain 

 as the Alderney, and correctly termed, in the article 'Cattle,' of the 

 'Library of Useful Knowledge,' 'the crumpled horned,' was originally 

 Norman, it is conceived, as cows very similar to them in form and 

 color are to be seen in various parts of Normandy, and Brittany 

 also; but the difference in their milking and creaming qualities is 

 really astonishing, the Jersey cow producing nearly double the quan- 

 tity of butter. 



"The race is miscalled 'Alderney' as far as Jersey is in question: 

 for, about 70 years since, Mr. Dumaresq, of St. Peter's, afterwards 

 the chief magistrate, sent some of the best Jersey cows to his father- 

 in-law, the then proprietor of Alderney; so that the Jersey was, 

 already at that period, an improved, and superior to the Alderney 

 race. It has since been vastly amended in form, and generally so 

 in various quahties, though the best of those recorded at that period 

 gave as much milk and butter as the best may do now. 



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