The Monticellonian., 1894-11-02
Cattle For The South.

bfceulng cattle IS very apt 10 want to know what breed is the best, imagining there is some ono breed that fills the entire bill; and indeed we have seen it claimed by even veterans in the service that there is such a breed such claim being set up for the Shorthorn or Dur ham breed of cattle especially. But there is little in any such claim, for the best beef qualities are incompatible with those going to make the best milk, and any one of the tendencies giving rise 10 such result must, before there is anything entitled to be regarded as breed, be too strong and fix ed to thus readily deviate, going one time to butter and the next to meat.
 We say thls in answer to a mum Der of inquiries recently received by Home and Farm rom points in the South. And 1t is evident from this that tLe all-round good COW is not 10 be looked for among purely bre stock, wherever else she may be sought. Anything answering to the account is either a grade or a cross-brcd animal. In other words, she is from scrub stock, graded up by the use Of pure bred males, ol else she rep resents q cross between two dis tinct strains of pure stock.
 0t curse, cattle thus originat- ing are without definite character istics that they can transmit. In the South, as it is thriving and ad- vancing to-day, all this k now up for investigation. The South is producing, as never before, her supplies at home; and, in the branch of cattle raising, which oc- cnpies itself with butter, she is up to the times end is every respect on an equality with any other part of this country. All through Kentucky. Tennessee, Mississippi, Mary Virginia and some oth- CT Southern States, the little Jer- sev is not only widely in use, but there are many large herds of them there that are second to none anywhere.
 In some of the Southern States the beef types of cattle, the Sort horn type especially, are produc- ed m as great perfection as they are anywhere. The place of Ken lucky in this respect IS especially well known; but both Tennessee and Virginia produce large quan- titles of the choicest beef. In or der to the continuous production of fine beef, there must be those pasturage conditions that arc so marked a feature in the farming of the States named.
 This brings us to one of the main points in successful cattle handIing-the conditions. Select the breed with reference to the environments. We all know what great little utter-making machines Jersey cattle are, equally well known for their superb beet are Herefords and Durhams. All three kinds, as we have them to- 1 day. are the outcome of conditions whose forces have been brt care fully directed by selection; the l Shorthorn coming from the rich pastures by the river Tees, and the Jersey from the restraint of a 1 tether in the little orchard of her small island native home.
 It is plain that the time is not ] far off when all the best breeds of cattle, all the principal types of {! ve-stock generally, will be of the l belongings of ofsouthern agriculture. With a bountifnl hand, nature has provided the means, and the peo- pie are fast learning how to bring the parts together. A few years ago only, big difficulty for the South, as a whole, in this respect, was the want of grass; but this is no longer to the fore, and to-day it is evident that in the matter of grass and kindred supplies the place of the South is destined to be leading one, the yield here of such being ahead of anything yet dreamed of for more northern lat itudcs.-H0me and Farm.