Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-01-16
The Future Of the Jerseys in Vermont.


Those who honor this department OF the
paper with steady reading know that we are
not the advocates of any imported breed Of
cattle as the cure-al for the shortcomings
and short yields of our diaries. On the con-
trary we believe that proper feeding, proper
care and proper breeding, if they could be
made general, would in twenty-five years
make the common cows of Vermont better
breed for our own use than anything that
ever has been or ever can be imported.
But we do not deny that when we come
to the matter of better breeding it would
often be judicious to use males from some
of the European breeds that have been
already improved. Particularly, for the
butter dairy, we believe that cross OF
Jersey blood-along ,oM the good feeding
and good care without which a good dairy
COW never can be produced-will be de-
cided help.
The Jerseys are only beginning to be ac-
cepted by our dairymen for this purpose.
But more than twenty-five years ago they
were introduced into our native county OF
Kennebec, in Maine, and became rapidly
popular there They are still popular, and
there are perhaps more good herds of Jersey
cattle in the Kennebec valley to-day than in
any other part of New England.
But the average Kennebec farmer under
stands, or observes, the true condition OF
making and preserving good breed of dairy
cattle no better than the average Vermont
farmer, if as well. The Kennebec valley is
fine farming country, but its Jersey cattle
have been mostly owned by men whose main
business was something else than farming
doctors, editors, manufacturers, ship build
ers, lumbermen or merchants The farmers
pure and simple, with few honorable ex
ceptions, did not take hold of them very
strongly for number of years. When they
did begin, they began as the scrub-farmer
generally does and as the old maid wanted
her dogs tail cut off, little at time, so as
not to hurt him. They would take as
gift, perhaps, the bull calf of grade or
thoroughbred village cow of Jersey blood,
raise him as they raised their other cattle,
and raise calves from him out of scrub cows.
They would feed aud care for these calves
in the bad old way, and now good deal OF
the stock in that county which is undeni-
ably grade Jersey, and some that is thorough
bred, is about as mean and pitiful as any.
thing in the way of dairy 5 ock can be.
We extract the following paragraphs from
letter in the Maine Farmer by one of the
good dairy farmers of Kennebec, and we dc
it as warning to Vermonters who may
think of "going into Jerseys in about
the way alluded to above. The writer quoted
was on the road during the warm weather
in December, and says:
"Lve stock was generally in the fields
and, with the rest, the last spring calves
Nearly all of these were Jersey heifers and
most of them in twelve to eighteen months
will be in milk, and what cows they will be
Not one single claim to favor, or even life,
save the fact that they are Jersey hefers.
Dwarfed in size, scraggy in general appear.
ance, poor as the seven lean kline of Pha.
raoh, and taken all in all, the very personi-
foation of ugliness. As rode along wa
querying how this came about. They were
on good farms, owned by good farmers and,
to appearances, there was no good reason
why the cows and calves should have thus
augmentation degenerated is just the
word. The Jersey stock of to-day is mott
mean the grade Jerseys-up to the character
of ten years ago, either in size, shape or
value. When the first Jersey bulls came to
Kennebec they were crossed upon well-bred
likely, sizeable cows and the offspring
while developing the peculiar excellencies
Of the Jerseys as dairy stock, at the same
time retained something of the outward ap
pearance of the dam.
But how is it with the dairy stock of to-
day. When one patronizes Jersey bull,
his only anxiety is that he may obtain a
heifer calf, and if he does so that in turn is
reared for COW simply and solely because
it is Jersey; and so the thing has gone on
to the present time, and is still going on,
and it has given us just such lot of cows
and heifers as we ought to have expected
know that people who live in glass
houses out not to throw stones" and have
done the same thing myself, but that don't
help the matter in the least, and for me |
am sick of it.
81 know that an average Jersey is better,
and great deal better, than an average COW
of other breeds heretofore common among
us, and there was some reason for keeping
the heifers even though they were not up TO
the standard but question whether we
can afford to go farther in this direction. In
one or two decades we shall need honey
extractor or some such contrivauce TO get
the milk, aud an old-fashioned goose-pen to
keep the calves n."