Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1876-08-31
LIV { STOCK.
THE JERSEYS.

we nave 1HSb IlScuI HUN biAC pNi SotbiO Va Sh"o
charming book, A Farmers Vacation, by
George e. Waring, Jr., and have been es..
peciallv interested in his account Of cold
jersey and the Jersey cattle. Col. Warning
is himself breeder of Jerseys, and describes
them in their native home with the enthusl-
asm of an amateur. He, however, is not so
~preiudiced in their favor that he can not
view them with a critics eye, for he says:
eEven now there are to be found in jersey
q very large number of Informed, slab-slded
cows, hollow-backed, cat-hammed, and STOP
ing at the rump, which show how largely
the points of beauty have been neglected"
This lack of beauty, which is notlceably IN
this country as well as in Jersey, the Colo
mel ascribes to the fact that the Jersey farm
ers, till within a recent period, have had on
1y one objective point in view, and that has
been the largest and richest production OF
milk. The demand for Jerseys in England
and America has stimulated the breeders OF
the island to improve the general form OF
their stock, though to this day the great
point in Jersey breeding is the production
of butter. Hitherto the farmers OF this
country have been inclined to regard the
Jerseys as fancy stock, better adapted for a
family cow, and for gentlemen farmers than
for general dairy purposes, but the impress
sion is gaining ground that where butter is
the objective point of the dairy an infusion
of Jersey blood adds greatly to the value OF
the product, and possibly we cannot do the
agricultural readers OF the Times a greater
service than by furnishing them with some
of the facts stated by Col. Waring, adding
such observations as have come to our WI
notice.
And firstly, as to the origin of the Jersey
breed. Their history is not recorded with
all the minuteness of that of William the
Conqueror but, like him, they probably
came from Normandy. They still possess
many Of the characteristics Of the cattle of
the north of Fr.nce; but hundreds Of years
possibly a thousand-haye modified the
Jerseys so that they are now a distinct race
While in France the COWS are still more or
less used for work as well as milk, the Jer-
sey farmers have made milk the exclusive
object, and do not even allow their cows to
roam in search of food, but keep them teth-
cred or in stable the year round. To this
fact Col. Warning is inclined to attribute the
extreme richness of their milk, andthe want
of muscle and force in the animal.
AS this is an important point in dairy man
agement, and greatly favors the growing
practice of soil feeding, we give the Colo
nel's theory in his own words TT seems
probable that the development of muscle by
physical exercise tends to direct the nutri-
ment of the food to the formation of flesh,
leaving less to enlarge the quantity and en-
rich the quality of the milk. Perhaps, too,
the degree to which the fat-forming por-
tions of the food are converted into cream in
the udder bears some relation to the demand
which the lung action makes upon these
substances to supply carbon for oxidation
in the process of breathing. It is a we'll
known fact that a COW driven long distances
to and from pasture, produces less butter
than one leading a more indolent life, and
the inference is chat the increased respira-
ton in this case consumes the hydrocarbons
OF the food, which if not SC. destroYed, would
be converted into butter. Assuming this to
be true, may we not infer that an animal
who's lungs have been enlarged by genera
lions of work or active exercise, breathing
more largely because of greater lung capac-
ity, oxidizes and. expires a larger amount of
the very elements required for the produc-
ton of butter? However true this, theory,
the facts on which it is based are unuues-
tionable.n