1 Oocr., 1897.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 311 
the Normanby herd, around Ipswich there were many good milkers of a Devon 
type and colour, with Durham strain showing up. ‘They were not so grand as 
the Normanby mouse-coloured cows; still, cows of this Devon type we milked 
thirty years ago, were as good milkers as we had ever been accustomed to in 
Scotland. 
In 1867, passing Blythdale Station, near Roma, in the milking-yard 
there were pure Durham cows of such milking qualities that, fresh as I was 
from the cattle markets of the old country, where such cows would readily 
fetch £26 per head, I could not abstain from calculating possible margins of 
profit on shipments. 
The advocates for a single purpose cow—who affirm that a general 
purpose cow cannot and does not exist, that at the same time will be a good 
butcher’s beast, and be equally as good a milker as the Ayrshire and Jersey 
—have certainly small grounds for their assertion. 
If we confine our attention to the present state of the herds of Queensland, 
their assertion may appear to have confirmation; but if we take a look back 
at the facts as they present themselves to us—before the insane eraze for beefy 
types took possession, even of our dairymen, who felt constrained to follow 
the craze and obtain bulls from the stations of this beefy type, with the result 
that in developing deep fleshy thighs and open shoulders they lost their milk—- 
we can only come to the conclusion that the poor men were generally so 
inexperienced, that they neither knew why they had lost it nor how to regain it. 
Now they have been advised, they will find it by going for purposed 
breeds. Let us grant they will. Is it advisable to secure milk by sacrificing to 
such an extent the value of the cow for butchers’ purposes, when milk can be 
obtained without this sacrifice? Iam of the opinion, “No.” 
In the earlier times and up to thirty years ago, the cattle stock of 
Australia were good general purpose animals. To-day, in the Illawarra 
district they remain so, and yet have a record for milk that pretty nearly beats 
the world. 
In my remarks on the Devon and other Celtic cattle, I omitted mention of 
their horns. In this respect their likeness to the herds of ancient Hgypt is some- 
what remarkable. The horns of the red Egyptian cattle are shown to be similar 
to the Devon of to-day. At the same time with respect to the horns of the cattle 
worked and owned by the Egyptian agriculturists as depicted working in plough 
and threshing-floors we could imagine the ancient artists had secured modern 
West Highland Kyloes for their models. Our Australian experience at once 
convinces us that great judgment, experience, and observant intelligence had 
all been combined in raising this class of cattle—that, in fact, we are only 
beginning to understand a few of the many qualities those ancient Egyptians 
had concentrated into their herds. It is a strange fact that, if our most 
intelligent bullock-drivers were the only parties to be consulted as to what 
type of horn was best, our cattle would have horns exactly similar to those 
owned and worked by the ancient Egyptian farmers, the reason simply being 
that cattle with this horn are intelligent, docile, and tractable, train readily to 
understand and obey, and become valuable as leaders. On the other hand, 
cattle with hoop or inturned horns of a pure Durham type remain only fit for 
body of team purposes. Amongst Australian herds of Durhams there is a 
frequent reversion to a Celtic type of horn—evidently throwing back on the 
South American cows which were largely imported in the early times of our 
settlement; and we find our bullock-drivers, when picking steers for work, 
invariably select animals showing this reversion. Amongst the ancient Egyptian 
cattle, just as amongst the Celtic cattle of to-day, there existed a polled 
variety ; but it seems to have been a grazier’s animal, not an agriculturist’s. If 
we may judge from the fact that we invariably find it represented with calves 
at foot at large cattle musters (of a bangtail order for cows), it was evidently a 
large grazier’s animal, not a small farmer’s; it seems to haye occupied much 
the same position in ancient Egypt which the Galloway does to-day in Scotland 
—a grazier’s beast rather than a general purpose one, 
