Herd Register of the American Jersey Cattle Club Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875 Excerpt: ...by Messrs. Taintor, Norton, and Buck, near Hartford, may be considered the foundation-stock out of which the present race of Jerseys in America has grown. Numerous importations have been made almost constantly since then, but nearly all pedigrees of ten years' standing trace back to animals imported by Motley and Taintor and their associates--a circumstance which is, on the whole, fortunate; for the average quality of animals brought into the country since i860 has certainly not been higher than the average of these earlier importations. THE JERSEY AS A DAIRY COW. The primary object in breeding the Jersey cow is, as in the case of all other dairy races, to secure a good cow--that is, a good milk-giver; and the first point to be regarded is to see that those characteristics which in all cows indicate large milk-giving capacities are permanently preserved, and those which denote a tendency to the production of fat in the carcass and the production of beef--that is, the grazing quality--be avoided. It may be taken as an axiom applicable to all cows, especially during the first three or four years of their lives, that a tendency to beefiness is objectionable where the highest yield of dairy products is desired. In all works on catde we find general directions for the selection of milking cows, which do not vary materially, and the leading principles of which should always be borne in mind. The description given in "Flint's Milch Cows and Dairy Farming " is in the main as applicable to Jerseys as to any other race, and the reader is referred to this well-known work. We may well criticise the description there given, however, in some of its points, not only in considering the Jersey cow, but equally in examining other breeds. Small, short horns are pret...