The Guernsey Breed 97 



Great Britain and America it is left to tlic owners to register such 

 animals as they think fit, subject only to the condition of proving 

 their purity of breed. 



"But in the Channel Islands, wliere purity of lilood is secured In- 

 laws prohibiting importation of breeding stock, it had occurred to 

 some persons to make an entirely different idea form the basis of a 

 Herd Book. Following a suggestion which was first started' in Jer- 

 sey, a few gentlemen in Guernsey, about fi\e years ago, proposed a 

 Herd Book in which the entries were to be limitcil to animals which 

 they themselves should approve. They inserted some wliich were 

 already dead, and took for their standard of living ones their own 

 ideas as to external appearance, together with the 'milk test' invented 

 by M. Guenon, a Frenchman, who conceived he had discovered an 

 infallible criterion of the quantity of milk a cow would' yield in the 

 direction of certain lines of hair lietween the udder ami the root of 

 the tail. Of this discovery it is sufficient to say that, whether suc- 

 cessful or not with French breeds, it is pro\-ed to be entirely falla- 

 cious when applied to Guernsey cows. A list of some 170 animals, 

 made up on these principles, was publishecV in 1S79 under the name 

 of 'The Guernsey Herd Book,' and a second part was subsequently 

 issued. 



"The great majority of Guernsey farmers, howexcr, held aloof 

 from this scheme; and dissatisfaction \vitli the results of the judging 

 caused some of its first supporters to leave it. In 1X81 its projectors 

 offered to hand it o\-er to the Royal .\gricultural and Horticultural 

 Society of the Island. That bofly, b\- a narrow m.'ijorit)', in which 

 a number of persons who were not owners of stock were included, 

 decided to take over the publication insofar as it had already pro- 

 ceeded; to add to it its own show prize lists of the two preceding 

 years; and to carry it on for the future by inserting riuly the names 

 nf such animals as might take i)rizes at future sliows. These ex- 

 ceed 100 in each year, prizes being given to consid'er.aldy more than 

 half of the number exhibited. But still further to augment the number 

 to be inscribed in the Herd Book as winners of prizes, it was re- 

 solved to hold parish shows, at which no money prizes should be 

 given, but every animal passed by the judges should be entitled to 

 be registered in the Herd Book on the same footing as if it had 

 taken a prize at the principal show. 



"A numerous meeting of Guernsey farmers, held immediately 

 after these resolutions were passed, expressed tlieir rlissatisfaction 

 with the arrangements thus made. It was felt that, while they low- 

 ered, or destroyed, the value of honors gained at the island shows, 

 they still subjected any Ilerd Book founded on them to tlie mischief 

 involved in the fact that selection would he founded on mere external 

 appearance. While the importance of this element was fully ad- 

 mitted, it was considered that, in the case of a breed of which the 

 special excellence lies in the quality as well as the quantity of _ the 

 milk, exclusive regard to external points was not merely a fallacious 

 test, but one likely to result in deterioration. It was further recog- 

 nized that many of the most careful breeders in Guernsey had for 

 this very reason never exhibited at the annual shows, and that a book 

 which should exclude their herds would be no fair representative 

 of the best island stock. Instances were recalled in which, both by 

 the judges for the herd book in question and by those of the agri- 



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