8G 
ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 
History of Holstoins. 
In the adaption of breeds to special purposes' we must always heal 
in mind that feed, climate, care, and careful breeding must be taker 
into consideration. Thus for the most excellent dairy cattle, we must 
look to countries noted for dairy products. In such districts will always 
be found tolerably uniform and excellent milkers. Really scientific] 
-breeding has not been practiced until within a very few years. It was 
more experiment than anything else. Yet so long ago as 1G25, England, 
Holland and Switzerland were noted for dairy products, and also for 
breeds of deep and lasting jmillcers. As education increased, and wealth 
became more general, improvement by selection was supplemented by a 
careful study of certain points and characteristics that might be expected 
to perpetuate themselves. Thus wo now have the Jerseys, the Ayrshires, 
the Swiss cattle, and Holsteins, each specially adapted to the soil and 
requirements of their respective localities. The Holstein cattle, or those 
of North Holland, are noted for large frames ; for being of two distinct 
colors, black and white mixed. They belong to the great short-horned 
division of cattle, which race, from the best accounts extant, would seem 
to have been peculiar to the transient inhabitants of Germany from time 
immemorial, and to have been carried with them in all then - migrations. 
The size, adaptation to districts yielding strong, plentiful herbage, and 
extraordinary milking qualities, have made them universal favorites in 
the West, and wherever introduced in all that great country of the 
Northwest that of late years has so suddenly become celebrated for its 
dairy products. Within the last century this breed, like all other pure 
breeds, has been wonderfully improved by the astute and practical 
Hollanders, so that it may now be called as distinctly a breed as any 
other of the more reputable families. Like the Durham and Teeswater 
cattle of a hundred years ago, they were then noted for a fair uniformity 
in appearance, and as deep milkers, good at the yoke, and as making 
heavy weights of fair beef when ready for fattening. Tho general 
characteristics of these two breeds would seem to point conclusively to 
, the fact that originally they had a common ancestry in cattle belonging 
to the ancient races inhabiting the north of Europe, and that they were 
.carried wherever these people, in their wanderings, migrated. 
Improvement. 
We have no definite knowledge when this wonderfully constituted 
short-horned race of cattle first became broken up into the various 
families that have of late years become celebrated both as dairy cattle 
and as beef cattle. It is probably within the last three centuries that 
