The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-04-11
rosMoPoLITANIsM OF JERSEY
CATTLE.
Prize Essay, by John Duncan.

From all the ~innumerable species
and distinct forms of life in this world
in this world only a very small num-
Der have directly attached themselves
to man, being able to stay with him IN
all chimes. Those thus distinguished
are, for this country at least, familiar
to all. and so need not be named; and
in this select class animals Of the cow
kind are entitled to a leading place. In
a general way it may be given as a fact
that wherever civilized man is, there
fourishes the COW; and it is further
true that the better the civilization the
better the COW.
Animals Of the cow kind have not
only the invaluable trait of cosmopoli-
tanism-of adapting themselves to
many wide and different circumstances
by which they r enabled to go with
man into almost all parts of the earth,
but they have the additional important
characteristic for susceptibly being
modified, so as to be fitted for and then
confirmed in special uses. Thus we
have a number of well marked and
well known sorts of beef cattle; then
there are the milk breeds, some famous
for the quantity Of milk they give,
some for the richness of the milk and
the superb quality of the can and
butter produced therefrom.
The Jersey possesses in the highest
perfection the qualities last mentioned,
her chief mission being to produce in
the most economic way the richestand
best cream from which everywhereca can
be made the choicest butter. These
articles, when in the form in which the
Jersey affords them, are Of the belong
ings of the highest civilization; and
wherever this has been reached, there,
but not otherwise, Jersey cattle find a
congenial home. If men have to chQ0Ee
between the evils of bad beef or bad
butter, they will certainly want in
good form that which is on every table
and apart of every meal, that without
which bread to every man and child
alike ishardtack. When in these days
of quick railroad and teIegraphic
communication, one thus fairly vie US
the relation which the Jersey sustains
to daily living, wonder at the wide and
rapid spread Of the breed ceases, what
is going On being evidently but the
natural effect Of the recognition of the
truth that here is the best of all around
family COWS, suited as she is to univer-
sal service, and fourishing through the
cold of the Canadian winter equally
well with what she does on the sunny
shores Of the Gulf of Mexico; il being
the fact that Canada and the States of
the South have each in turn held first
hOnors for amount Of butter produced
by a Jersey in a year, the well known
evidence to this effect being Mary Anne
of st. Lambert, the famous Canadian
COW, and Signals Lily Flag, the pres
ent Southern phenomenal Jersey.
While the Jersey is a machine that
in the course Of many generations has
been slowly constructed for a specific
purpose, she is also, being a living or
ganism very much more than any
mere machine. To overlook the nature
and character of the principle Of life
entering into her outfit is to fail to ap
preciate the main cause going to make
her what she is, this IN urn entailing
inability from ignorance to make the
most of her in her cosmopolitan capabili-
ties. The Jersey of today represents very
large effort, extending back through
more than a century Ct time; and iii
the constructive work that has thus
gone on an eye to vital force must have
kept up with watchfulness for her good
points as regards yield and quality Of
yield, together withall other essentials
It is really the high vitality of the Jer-
sey that enables her not only to take
the raw material of food and, far above
any necessities of her own, cause it to
assume the form best calculated to ad-
minister to human wants, but also to
cause the food to 50 sustain the general
animal organism as to enable it, under
the guidance Of the accompanying
skill of man, to go and prosper wher-
ever men can go and do the like. If
we will allow our mind to run back
from the present Jersey standard to
the time when, as we see it in imagina
ton, the first systematic step was taken
in the direction Of what we now have
it will of necessity be seen that the
results reached could not have been
reached, even in the liberal period
thus allowed, short of much discarding
and, in the main, a rigid adherence to
the law calling for the survival of the
~fttest, and the fttest only. The Island