12 
THE OX. 
THE KERRY BREED. 
a Dexter. Amongst the successful cultivators of the dairy breed of Ireland ought to be mentioned the late Bishop of Killaloe. 
He sedulously endeavoured to preserve and improve a breed which he conceived to be so useful to the peasantry of Ireland; but 
his example has scarcely spread amongst other breeders of the country. 
The Kerry Cows afford admirable first crosses with the Short-horns, Herefords, and other larger breeds. Of these crosses, 
that with the Short-horns is the most general, and appears to be the best. The crosses are found well adapted to fattening, as 
well as to the dairy, and the profit from this system is so immediate that it is to be believed that it will be more largely resorted 
to than a progressive improvement of the parent stock. 
Nevertheless the cultivation of the pure dairy breed of the Kerry mountains ought not to be neglected by individuals or 
public associations. The breed is yet the best that is reared over a large extent of country, from its adaptation to the existing 
state of agriculture, and to the humid mountains and bogs in which it is naturalized. Were it to be reared with care in a good 
district, the form would be gradually more developed, and the Kerry breed might then bear the same relation to the mountain 
breeds of Ireland, which the Castle Martin does to those of Wales, or the West Highland to those of the north of Scotland. The 
figure in the Plate will show a considerable resemblance between the Kerries and North Devons; but the two breeds are very 
different in size and form. They are distinguished also by the adaptation of the Kerry Breed to the dairy, for which the other 
is imperfectly suited. A painting of a Bull of the Dexter variety of the Kerry breed is in the College Agricultural Museum, 
which may be regarded in most of its points as a model of form. 
