28 
THE OX. 
THE ALDERNEY BREED. 
trees, gardens, and little cultivated fields, amongst which are to be seen the villas and chateaus of the opulent, with the lowlier 
yet not less beautiful dwellings of tbe bumbler classes, green with vines and myrtles, and embosomed in groves of the cider-apple. 
When viewed more near, all tbe surface of tbe country is seen to be intersected with innumerable banks of earth covered with trees, 
and verdant with tbe leaves of bushes and tbe creeping ivy. These are tbe divisions of tbe numberless little fields and possessions of 
tbe inhabitants, into which, as an effect of the old Norman law of succession, enforcing an equal division of land amongst tbe children 
of a family, tbe whole country has been partitioned. Tbe necessary effect of this law, operating lor more than nine centuries within tbe 
narrow limits of a small island, has been to reduce all tbe land of the country into small possessions. Scarcely an estate is to be found 
in tbe whole island of forty acres, many vary from five to fifteen, and tbe greater number fall below tbe extent of tbe least of these. 
The tendency and effect of such an institution, continued from age to age, might seem to be to produce an interminably minute 
division of property in land; and yet experience proves that there are limits to such a division, even in a tract so narrow and 
populous as Jersey. The children, in succeeding to the parcelled inheritance, make such arrangements with one another as theii 
interests require. The younger sells to the elder, and he who does not wish for land, to him who does ; and thus, besides the law 
of mortality, which unites from time to time the scattered possessions into one, the interests of the possessors present a barrier to 
an indefinite subdivision. The law, founded on the simple principle that every man is bound to provide equally for his children out 
of his stock in land, and that every lawful child has an equal right to the inheritance of his father, is cherished by these islanders as 
the most venerable of their institutions. It was derived by them from their Norwegian ancestors, in whose country it exists to the 
present hour; and where, after the lapse of more than a thousand years, it has not produced an excessive subdivision of estates. The 
land of Norway is indeed more divided than it would have been under the feudal system, but not into smaller possessions than the 
interests of the inheritors demand; and in no country in Europe does there exist a happier and more independent race of yeo¬ 
manry than the Udal proprietors of Norway. In Jersey and its sister islands the division has been more minute, merely because 
a greater number of families can subsist on a given space of giound. 
All the practices of rural industry in these islands are modified by this ancient institution. The land thus partitioned is culti¬ 
vated in the manner of a garden, and the industry of the people supplies the place of that art which simplifies and economises labour; 
and that the substitution is sufficient, appears from this, that larger returns in produce and money are here obtained than m the richest 
parts of the British Islands. The island of Jersey, in the cases where it is let on lease, brings from L.4 to L.5 and upwards the 
acre, and in the neighbourhood of St Helier, the principal town, it lets as high as from L.8 to L.12; and at these enormous rents, 
it is to be observed, families are reared in humble affluence on spots which elsewhere would be considered insufficient to maintain 
the poorest labourer. The people cultivate cider as the principal subject of export, and fruits of different kinds; and m an especial 
manner, lucerne, clover, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, and cole, for the food of their cows. They cultivate, likewise, pease and 
the cereal grains, and reap abundant returns. Their land never lies fallow for a season, but is either m patches of fertile meadow, 
or yields continued crops in tbe manner of a garden. They manure it with the marine plants which grow m vast abundance over all 
their rocky shores. The sea-plant* thus collected, they term Vraic, and use either fresh or burned. They obtain the vraic as it 
is cast on shore, or they shear it from the rocks at stated times. The periods and the mode of gathering it are nicely regulated 
by the insular laws, so that all the people may equally partake of this natural gift of their seas. It forms their domestic fuel, and 
the ashes are carefully preserved for use. The Cow, in an especial degree, is the subject of the care of these island farmers. She 
is penned on a narrow space, and shifted to fresh spots of herbage several times in the day, and in the nights of winter she is warmly 
housed, and, when about to calve, is nourished with cider and spices. Throughout all the year these little cows are to be seen in 
their patches of meadow, often under the shade of the apple-trees, and so fastened that they cannot raise their heads to pull the 
fruit. In addition to their herbage, they are fed with lucerne, clover, carrots, parsnips, and the large Jersey cole, the leaves of 
which are stripped off as they grow. A value is here attached to the cow greater, perhaps, than in any other part ot Europe. She 
is the resource of the household for food, and her surplus produce is a part of the returns of every farm. A Jersey man, it is 
said, will treat every animal on his farm with neglect except his cow. To preserve the purity of the race, an act of the insular 
Legislature was passed in the year 1789, and yet subsists, by which the importation into Jersey of any cow, heifer, calf, or bull, is 
prohibited under the penalty of 200 livres, with forfeiture of the boat and tackle, and a further penalty of fifty livres is imposed on 
any sailor on board who does not inform of the attempt. The animal itself is to be immediately slaughtered and its flesh given 
to the poor. 
The breeds of the several islands are essentially the same, although that of Guernsey deviates from the common type, and 
presents a greater affinity with the races of Normandy, the individuals having more spreading horns, the size being larger, the 
form rounder, and the bones less prominent, than in the cattle of the other islands. The true Alderney has a great resemblance 
to certain breeds of Norway, which leads to the conclusion, that, in the intercourse with the North which followed the subjugation 
of Normandy and its dependencies, Scandinavian cattle were introduced into the Islands of the Channel. 
