VOL. XLVI. NO. 1976. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 10, 1887. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year, 1887, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
&l)t ijfnXsmnii. 
OUR ANIMAL PORTRAITS. 
A GROUP OK GRADE CATTLE. 
NIMALS belonging to none 
of the recognized or estab¬ 
lished breeds are usually 
spoken of as “common 
stock 1 ’ or “natives.” These 
constitute by far the largest 
proportion of the live stock 
of the country. They are 
animals of mixed blood, without any tixed 
characters, and are therefore iuore readily in¬ 
fluenced by a cross of superior blood than the 
local, unimproved native breeds of Europe, 
which have more definite Characteristics; for 
it is a well-known fitct that the higher-bred 
parent has most influence on the progeny. 
Among cattle when one of the parents be¬ 
longs to au established breed and the other is 
a “native,” the offspring is a “grade,” beingin 
reality a half blood, though usually much 
more like its pure-bred parent than the “na¬ 
tive.” The produce of such a half-blood and 
a pure-bred is also a grade, or three-quarter- 
bred animal. The young of a pure-bred and 
tbree-quartor-bred will be a soven-eigbths- 
bred, and this process can be carried on in¬ 
definitely until the number of crosses of pure 
blood is sufficient to entitle the animal to reg¬ 
istry in the herd-book of the breed. Iu some 
of the herd-books, however, no number of 
crosses will entitle the produce to registration. 
In these cases, it is said thatu taint of impure 
blood can never be bred out, as there is al¬ 
ways a danger of reversion. Experience 
shows, however, that animals seven-eighths 
to flfteen-sixteeuths-bred can seldom be dis¬ 
tinguished from pure-bred beasts. An ani¬ 
mal with one or more crosses of pure Short¬ 
horn, Hereford, Devon or Jersey blood is 
| called a Short-horn, Hereford, Devon or Jer¬ 
sey grade, and when there are a considerable 
number of pure crosses, the offspring is called 
a high-grade Short-horn, etc., as the 
case may be. The produce of a sire 
and dam of different breeds is said 
to be “ cross-bred,” and this term is often ap¬ 
plied to the progeny of a pure-bred animal of 
one breed and a high-grade animal of auother. 
While the “ natives” have the advantage of 
greater hardiness,they are not such good feed¬ 
ers and do not arrive at maturity at as early 
au age as the pure-breds. When they are 
crossed with the best of the meat-produciug 
breeds, however, the progeny are at once im¬ 
proved in these important properties, while 
the quality of their flesh, especially where 
grading-up has been practiced, may be equal 
if not superior to that of pure-bred animals. 
In the pure breeds in which the fattening 
qualities have beeu highly developed, an ex¬ 
cessive amount of fat may be readily produced, 
with a corresponding deficiency of lean flesh, 
which diminishes the value of the animal for 
the butcher. When such animals are crossed 
on good “ natives,” the quality of the flesh 
of the progeny, in its proportion of lean and 
fat, is often far superior to that of either pa- 
► reut. Hence the advantage of good grade and 
high-grade herds for the shambles or the 
dairy; for what is true of the beef-brood grades 
for meat is true of the dairy-breed grades for 
milk. An excellent herd of grade cattle is 
kept on the farm of the University of Illinois, 
and we are indobted to Professor G. E. Mor¬ 
row for the photograph from which the group 
shown at Fig. 475 was engraved. Of the 
group iu the foreground the animal to the ex¬ 
treme left is a Short-horn grade; then, side on, 
an Ayrshire; next, full front, a Hereford, and 
beyond, a Holstein-Friesian. Most of the 
animals here depicted were exhibited at the 
American Fat Stock Show at Chicago. 
