1897 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
691 
Buff Japanese Bantams are Next, 
The buff of the Buff Leghorn was, 
probably, originally made by selecting 
the best buff to be found in the Hocks 
of mixed Leghorns. I am told that, in 
Italy, birds of a buff color or partly buff 
can be found. Mrs. Lister-Kay, of Eng¬ 
land, the first to introduce the Buff 
Leghorn, got her first birds from Nor¬ 
way, I believe, and bred in the color as 
we got it first, by selection. I think 
it is a fact that Cochin blood was used 
in some of our American strains, our 
breeders being in too much of a hurry 
to wait for the slow process of im¬ 
provement by selection. Undoubtedly 
the Rhode Island Red and the Cochin 
both had a part in fixing the color of 
some of our Buff Plymouth Rocks and 
Wyandottes. To fix the color and get 
rid of the objectionable white or black 
by selecting the best from each season’s 
breeding, would take years, I should say 
anywhere from five to ten, depending 
upon how much “ fixing ” the strain 
needed. This requires much skill and 
knowledge of the laws of breeding to 
retain size and vigor with the inbreeding 
necessary. The latest new thing in 
buff of which I have heard, is a Buff 
Japanese Bantam, a pair or trio of which 
is on the way to the Havemeyer 
Brothers’ yards. This, if it is good, 
will be a beautiful bird, and a decided 
acquisition to our list of bantams. A 
Buff Indian Game has been in process 
for four or five years, but I have not 
heard much about it lately, b. holmes. 
A National Color in China. 
horns and Polish—besides the original Buff Cochin 
and Bantams. I know of no breed undergoing the 
yellow evolution at the present time, henry hales. 
THE GUERNSEY GRADE COW. 
The American Guernsey Cattle Club has issued a 
little pamphlet with the above title, which shows 
quite forcibly the value of the Guernsey for improv¬ 
ing common cattle. The business dairy cow of 
America will be a grade having for ancestors a sire 
with improved dairy blood, and a strong vigorous 
dam of ordinary breeding. The bread-and-butte 
dairyman cannot afford to buy or keep 
a herd of purebreds. The best he can do 
is to buy a good bull of a dairy breed, 
and keep him at the head of his herd of 
common cows, using the heifers from 
the best cows to fill the places of the 
“weeds.” 
For such purposes, the well-bred 
Guernsey bull is peculiarly valuable. 
Guernseys are strong, rugged, good- 
natured animals, which “nick,” perhaps, 
better than any other breed with the 
cows generally found in dairy sections. 
In order to show what some of these 
Guernsey grades look like, we reprint 
three engravings from the pamphlet. 
Guernsey Maid, Fig. 291, is, by breeding, 
seven-eighths Guernsey, and she closely 
resembles the true type. At a test at 
the Bay State Fair, in 1896, this cow 
made, in one day, 37 pounds 13% ounces 
of milk and two pounds five ounces of 
butter. A registered Guernsey won 
second prize, and another grade won 
third. Houston, Fig. 292, shows the re¬ 
sult of crossing the Guernsey bull on 
Jersey cows, and Lily of the Valley, 
Fig. 293, is another cow with the blood 
of both breeds in her veins. Both of 
these cows are, evidently, larger and 
more rugged than the average Jersey. 
We regard Houston as about the ideal 
shape for a business dairy cow. If a 
farmer will start with a first-class bull, 
raise the heifers from his best cows, and 
cull them out with courage , he will, in a 
few years, have a herd of cows very 
much of the type of Houston or Guern¬ 
sey Maid. 
Mr. Chas. L. Hill, who prepared this 
pamphlet, writes us the following letter : 
“While I have bred and sold a good 
many grade Guernseys, still the most I 
know of them comes from observation 
in neighboring herds. One neighbor 
started with a purebred bull, in 1887, 
and has had since 1890 a herd of grade 
Guernsey cows. The foundation stock 
was purebred and high-grade Short¬ 
horns, testing about 3.5 per cent fat. 
The grade Guernseys, as two-year olds, 
gave 25 to 40 pounds, and as mature 
cows, gave 35 to 60 pounds per day; 
the average test for a year was fully 4 5 
par cent of fat. He has in the last 18 
months sold five one-half and three- 
quarters blood cows at $75 each, which 
is very high for the West. 
“ I have tested three herds besides our 
own, where a purebred Guernsey bull 
has been in use, and the average per 
cent of fat in the milk of 21 grade Short¬ 
horn and native cows was 3.81 per cent. 
The milk of 24 grade Guernseys, all half- 
bloods but four, was 4.55 per cent, while 
13 purebreds averaged 5.43 per cent. 
This shows that the first cross from a 
thoroughbred sire will be about an 
average between the breed of the sire 
and dam. One of these men has four 
half-blood Guernseys which milk over 
40 pounds per day each, at two years 
old, and they are, also, more persistent 
than their dams. 
“As to what is the best cow for the foundation 
dam, it is hard to answer. My observation has been 
largely on Short-horns and Jerseys. While the former 
gives a fine cow, and the three-quarter-bloods are 
very near ideal cows, probably the first cross from 
the Jersey would, in a greater number of cases, be a 
strictly high-grade dairy cow. I have seen but few 
cows resulting from a cross of a Guernsey bull on 
grade Holstein cows, but they were fine, especially the 
three-quarter-bloods or second cross. Very many Wis¬ 
consin dairymen who have grade Holsteins, since the 
introduction of the Babcock test, are buying Guernsey 
bulls to use on their herds, and a few years will give 
us more data along this line. 
GRADE GUERNSEY COW, HOUSTON. Fig. 292. 
CROSS-BRED GUERNSEY-JERSEY COW, LILY OF THE/VALLEY. Fig. 293 
testify as to the means employed, whether by selec¬ 
tion solely, or by the addition of fresh blood. In 
many cases, breeders have not regarded the source so 
long as anything offered which promised to help out 
in shape or color. As the imported stock was, in all 
probability, a recent mixing of the grosser types of 
White and Brown Leghorns as found across the water, 
so it is probable that the crossing of our more deli¬ 
cately-built American Leghorns has furnished an 
efficient source of the improvement now seen. And 
the English fanciers seem to have appreciated Ameri¬ 
can enterprise, for they are now sending across for 
our more approved type of Buff Leghorns 
As to the composition of my own stock 
of Buff Leghorns, I can speak authori¬ 
tatively, having put them together by 
borrowing one trait from one source, 
and others here and there until seven 
breeds are represented. This stock has 
been deemed sufficiently good to have 
won at the most important shows of 
New Jersey and Rhode Island last sea¬ 
son. A score of 94 points given a cock¬ 
erel by a noted judge and breeder of 
the variety is ample testimony to the 
fact that a buff fowl may be produced, 
using mainly the blood of varieties whose 
sources of color were black and red 
rather than buff. f. w. proctor. 
edged feathers were also bred in the forties, such as 
the Golden Seabrights, and the Golden Polish. White 
is a color that occurs in all our domestic poultry. 
After the white is obtained, it is not a difficult matter 
to change to yellow ; of course, it takes several times 
interbreeding and selecting to get pure yellow. There 
is a natural tendency in white fowls to turn or breed 
to yellow. I believe a cross from another yellow 
breed is the short cut to the business, and the means 
mostly resorted to. I am confirmed in this opinion 
from the fact that nearly all of the new buff breeds 
that have recently come in fashion were off in shape 
Buff or yellow is a primitive or natural 
color with poultry ; it is one of the first 
changes from red that often occur from 
the original black-red type. In most old- 
fashioned yards of mongrel hens, plenty 
of yellow is seen, but the plumage is not 
all yellow—the tails, wings and hackle 
are usually darker. The first yellow 
fowl, as a breed, that I know of in Eng¬ 
land or America, was the Nankeen Ban¬ 
tam, so called from its color resembling 
a fashionable material at that time used 
for trousers. The cock was redder than 
the hen, which was a rich, soft, buff 
yellow. These fowls were known 75 
years ago; they were not entirely yellow, 
but the tips of the wings and tail were brownish. The 
old Chittagongs of 50 years ago were often yellow and 
brown, but the first pure yellow fowls of both sexes I 
can remember, were Buff Polish ; these with the Nan¬ 
keen Bantams have been recently reproduced. 
When the Asiatic or Cochin breeds were introduced, 
yellow at once became very popular ; the various yel¬ 
low shades from an almost lemon to a deep buff were 
greatly admired. With the Chinese, yellow is a 
national color, and this, probably, induced them to 
select this color above others for their poultry. The 
little yellow or Buff Cochin Bantam was first found 
and taken from the Pekin palace when Pekin was 
taken by the British. Bright yellow fowls with black’ 
from the breed they were to represent, some looking 
rather mongrelish. 
I have not tried the process of making a buff 
variety of any breed. I see it takes several years 
after they have been introduced to produce an even 
uniform buff. I know very well there are men who 
will deny having introduced crossing from other buff 
breeds, and it may be done in extreme cases by select¬ 
ing as I have stated above. Yet the fact that a ma¬ 
jority of buff varieties on their introduction were off 
(and some badly) in symmetry, shows that they were 
not selected from pure strains of the regular colors of 
the breed they were to represent. We now have buffs 
of most breeds—Plymouth^Rocks, Wyandottes, Leg¬ 
GRADE GUERNSEY COW, GUERNSEY MAID. Fig. 291 
