THE DEVON.

This is one of the choicest and most reliable of the dairy breeds. They are uniformly red, of fair size, have a sprightly appearance, and reproduce their like more certainly than any other breed that we know. As has been said, they are so prepotent, uniform, and distinct from the other breeds that they may be called a race of cattle. Their history runs back hundreds of years, until it is lost in tradition and uncertainty. But origin and history are of little consequence, since it is the living fact—the cattle themselves—that we have to deal with. The cows give a good sized mess of milk—large milkers have appeared among them as among other breeds—and their milk is very rich. It is not as rich as the Jersey's and the Guernsey's milk, but there is more of it, and it approximates the richness of the milk of these breeds more closely than that of any other. Hence, they are excellent butter cows, and justly favorites among those who are the most familiar with them and know how to breed them. Healthy, hardy, and easy to keep, they are adapted to almost any circumstances, and are excellent as butter or family cows, while the males, owing to their activity and endurance, make splendid oxen—both useful and fine looking. They make fine beef and a fair amount of it. They would be useful animals for crossing on the common stock and grades of the Northwest, where the climate is rigorous and both butter and beef are objects of importance. As workers, they would be very useful there. They will stand as much hardship as any breed we have, and as much as any breed ought to, but will do better under favorable than under unfavorable circumstances. Like all other breeds, they respond readily to kind and generous treatment, it being a universal law that want and abuse are sources of loss in the keeping of stock, the best results always following the best treatment. They will do well on level, hilly or rough pastures, because of their nimbleness and endurance: while the certainty of their breeding makes it perhaps less difficult to perpetuate their good qualities than is the case with any of the other breeds. In short, they are the most prepotent and uniform of all, give a good-sized mess of very rich milk, are easy to keep, hardy and active, and fill a sphere which it would be difficult to fill without them. We do not know how their milk appears under the microscope, but we judge from the characteristics of these animals that the butter globules are above the average size and very uniform. Hence the cream rises readily, is easily churned, and makes a rich-colored, fine-flavored butter. It is a little remarkable that the breeders of these cattle have not succeeded in getting up a "boom;" but the probability is that no strenuous and persistent effort has been made in this direction. Their superior merits are unquestioned and unquestionable.

THE AMERICAN HOLDERNESS.

This is a new breed, and its reputation is mainly of a local character. But it is not without its representatives in most of the Northern and Northwestern States, and its fame has traveled quite extensively, considering the quiet and unpretentious manner in which it was originated and has been bred. In some particulars it is the most uniform of the breeds, even more uniform than the Devon. Especially is this true of the quality of the milk, which is as uniform throughout the herd as if it were drawn from a single cow, the quality varying, where the keep is the same, only with the age of the cow, and the lapse of time since calving. The yield of milk, though not excessive, is large and very rich—almost equal to that of the Jersey and Guernsey, and quite equal to that of the Devon. It churns easily, and the butter completely separates from the buttermilk, rendering a second churning of no avail. Three hundred pounds per cow a year of high-colored and fine-flavored butter is a fair average for a herd. Few, even of selected herds, of other animals equal this. We are not aware of phenomenal milkers among the Holderness cattle, unless all can be called such, their chief characteristic being uniformity. They breed, it may be said, perfectly true to type, so that all are excellent. The reason for this uniformity is plain, and is found in the origin of the breed in the closest possible inbreeding for thirty years. They originated from a cow with calf which was bought by Mr. Truman A. Cole, of Solsville, N.Y., of a drover who had just purchased it at auction in Knoxboro, N.Y., where a herd of pure-bloods, because of the death of the owner, had been sold under the auctioneer's hammer. The cow dropped a bull calf, which was bred to its mother, then to both mother and sister; and this system of close inbreeding, even sire to daughter, as well as brother to sister, has been continued down to the present time, or for thirty years, as before stated. This has fixed and intensified the qualities, and at the same time secured the greatest possible uniformity and really established a breed, separate and distinct from all others. This is the way in which all the valuable breeds have been established, and this is the first persistent and successful effort at establishing a purely American breed that has ever been made. While carefully watching results and selecting for breeding purposes, Mr. Cole has steadily refused to be turned from his course, or to change his purpose of establishing a uniform butter breed, and of testing the fallacy of the popular notion about the injurious effects of inbreeding. His thirty years of the closest inbreeding have shown no such disastrous effects, but, on the contrary, have produced only good ones. There is no failure in form or constitution. The only marked external change, save in securing the greatest uniformity, has been in the gradual change of color. The original animals were pale red and white, the white being along the back from the shoulders to the tail, down the hind-quarters, and along the belly to the shoulders. This distribution of the light and dark colors has remained essentially the same, but the light red gradually turned to dark red, then to brindle and finally to black. The later bred animals are all black and white. But the calves, when first dropped, are still red and white, the red changing to black when the first coat of hair is shed. This is probably one of the most remarkable cases of inbreeding on record, as the breed is also one of the most remarkable. All who have tried this stock are remarkably well pleased with it, and calves readily sell for $100 a head with a demand greater than the supply—and this without any newspaper advertising. The breed is endorsed by Mr. Lewis F. Allen, former editor of the Shorthorn Herd-Book, and author of a work on cattle that stands second to none as authority. This endorsement has appeared in print over Mr. Allen's signature, as have the favorable opinions of many other good judges. In the latest edition of his book on the Cattle of America, he says:

"I never saw a more uniform herd of cows, in their general appearance and excellence, which latter quality they daily prove in the milk they produce. * * Compared with ordinary dairy herds, the uniformity in yield testifies to their purity of breeding and management."

"The cattle of this 'Cole-Holderness breed' are of good size and fair form as beef animals. * * * They are deep-bodied, with large udders and teats, with excellent escutcheons, great swollen and tortuous milk-veins and skins as yellow as Guernsey's. The interior of their ears was almost like orange-peel. The butter made from their milk * * * showed admirable color and keeping qualities. * * * Could we test the various breeds of cattle, with the view of determining with accuracy which is the most profitable dairy cow for all purposes—butter, cheese, veal, and ultimately beef—giving to each its fair weight in the scale of excellence, I would not be surprised if Mr. Cole's breed would win the distinction of being the most useful of all."

INBREEDING.

A word here about inbreeding will not be out of place. It may be disastrous, or it may be beneficial. So also may be crossing or grading. The evil as well as the good qualities are developed and intensified. Like begets like. Couple animals having the same bad points, and these points will be increased and strengthened. Couple those with good points, and corresponding results follow—that is, the good are increased and strengthened. But if one animal has one point to excess, so as to become a deformity, and the other is deformed by lack of this same point, it is both safe and advantageous to breed them together, as the result is likely to be a medium between the two. So, whatever the manner of breeding—inbreeding, crossing or grading—the good or evil results depend altogether on the characteristics of the animals coupled. Inbreeding intensifies and fixes the qualities, be they good or bad.

SWISS.

There have been a few importations of Swiss cattle, which are short-legged and strong-boned, and hence well adapted to hilly regions. Some of these have made splendid butter records—from 500 to over 700 pounds of butter in a year. We should have great hopes of them for the mountainous sections of our country; but as yet importation and breeding of this stock is not extensive enough to permit of their availability to any considerable extent for dairy purposes.

POLLED.

The polled or hornless cattle are great favorites with some of the Western people, and an effort is made to get up a boom on them. But they not only lack in numbers, but in the essential quality of a large flow of milk, or of a very rich one. The best information we can get does not indicate usefulness for the dairy. Neither do they excel several of the other breeds for beef. Their chief recommend appears to be their destitution of horns, which in our eye is far from a mark of beauty. It gives them a sort of bald, unfinished look that is anything but pleasing. We prefer, for looks, short, well-turned horns. But of course, without horns there is no hooking, but pushing is by no means avoided. Besides, in some cases we have known a lack of horns to make it difficult to fasten the animals in stanchions or with ropes. This may not be true of the cows; but we were cognizant of an instance on the New York State Fair grounds where a polled bull was constantly getting loose. His neck was so thick that he could slip his head through any place not tight enough to choke him. As to disposition, we presume the lack of horns would not make the bulls any more amiable. However, we have nothing to say against this kind of stock, and would advise all who like them to keep them. If horns are objectionable, it is easy to prevent them from growing on any stock by removing the first appearance of them on the calf. This can be done without much pain to the calf and without much trouble to one who knows how to do it. It, as we understand, requires no great skill, and can hardly be said to come under the head of cruelty to animals. It is nothing like as painful as castration.

HEREFORDS.

The Herefords are having quite a boom in the West, but it is not as dairy stock, but as superior for beef. We have seen no strong claims put in for them for dairy purposes. The few we have seen did not seem to indicate any great dairy qualities, nor have any of the numerous portraits we have seen published borne the marks of dairy stock. But the claim of beef qualities we believe is well founded. Their great rivals in this line are the Shorthorns.

COMMON STOCK.

We have not mentioned the so-called "Native" stock as a dairy breed, because it is not a breed, but a mixture of breeds—crazy-quilt stock. We would not be understood as considering it of no value for dairy purposes, for when carefully selected, a dairy herd of common stock may be very valuable. Great milkers and great butter makers are not uncommon among them; but there is such a mixture of blood in their veins that there is no guarantee of their producing their like. They originally sprang from the best animals that the early emigrants could select to bring over with them from Europe. But they were subsequently cross-bred so promiscuously that no trace of the original blood can be discovered with any certainty. They were also subjected to great exposure and hardship, with scanty food, which had a greatly deteriorating tendency. But, perhaps worst of all, there was no careful selection of males for breeding purposes, nor any attempt at judicious coupling for improvement, or for even the maintenance of the existing status. In short, the entire treatment and all the surroundings had a deteriorating influence and a tendency to the production of scrubs. If we were to take all the existing pure-blood stock and breed it together promiscuously, while at the same time subjecting it to harsh treatment and neglect, it would not require a very long period to reduce it to the same mongrel and scrub condition in which we now find the common stock of the country. Yet some of our common stock make excellent crosses, when pure-blood males are used. But no improvement or valuable results could come from using common stock bulls on pure-blood or other cows. The male has the controlling influence, and to the constant use of pure-blood males must we look for the improvement of the common stock of the country and for the maintenance of the existing status of the pure-bloods; and not only must we use pure-blood males, but keep up a constant and careful selection of the best. Neither should we trust to cross-bred or grade bulls for breeding purposes; for the progeny will inherit the traits of ancestors on one side or the other, and hence will lack in uniformity, both in appearance and in quality. When we use a grade bull, the result is just the opposite of what it is when we use a pure blood. With the latter, we get half-bloods, then quarter, then eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, and so on, toward pure blood; but with a half-blood grade bull, the first offspring from common stock has only one-fourth pure blood, the next cross has only one-eighth, the third one-sixteenth pure blood, and so on—reducing the purity in the same ratio as the use of pure blood improves it—if we continue to breed from the grade male offspring. If we always use a half-blood male, there may be a slight improvement in the blood. But the improvement is too slow and the benefit too uncertain to make the use of a grade bull advisable when a pure blood can be had.

BREEDING DAIRY STOCK.

Having briefly glanced at the characteristics of the different breeds, it will not be out of place to say a few words about breeding and rearing dairy stock. There are three things to be considered:

1. Selection.

2. Coupling.

3. Care.

SELECTION.

By selection, we mean not only the selection of the breed adapted to the line of dairying pursued, but the selection of the individual animals to breed and rear animals from, and especially the bull to be used on the herd. This male should have a good pedigree—that is, be the lineal descendant of animals known to possess the qualities desired in the future herd. This is all-important; for however well-formed and comely he may be, he will transmit the qualities of his ancestors as surely as like begets like. This fact can never be safely ignored. Milk and butter qualities, in a dairy herd, must take precedence over beauty of form, however desirable the latter may be. The cows to rear stock from should be selected, as far as possible, on the same principle. Pedigree is not of as much consequence in a cow, so far as practical results are concerned, though it helps insure certainly in the quality of the offspring when that of the cow, as well as of the bull, is right. But we may safely venture on raising the calves of a good milker, as the probabilities are that the offspring will inherit the qualities of the sire, while it may also inherit the qualities of the dam, though she be of the most mongrel or mixed blood. If there is failure, however, it need not go beyond that one animal—unless an attempt is made to use a grade bull on a nondescript dam, in which case prepotency is weakened and mongrelism may show in the offspring. But grade bulls should never be used when it is possible to have the use of the right kind of pure blood, which is always stronger than mixed blood, and hence a pure blood sire is pretty sure to transmit the qualities of his herd and family, in a great degree, even when coupled with a cow of uncertain blood. In breeding, the one bull makes half the herd, and when used on common stock, the offspring will always be half-bloods the first generation. The second generation they become three-quarter bloods; the third seven eighths; the fourth fifteen-sixteenth, and so on, constantly approaching, but never reaching, purity. For all dairy purposes, however, they become practically as good as pure-bloods. But if the breeding is the other way—that is, if a scrub bull is used on pure-blood cows—the degeneration to the scrub status is in precisely the same ratio that we have just given for improvement when pure-blood males are constantly used. By using grade bulls, there is also a constant deterioration of blood, but not as rapid as when scrub bulls are used. The only safety is in using pure blood males. With these well selected and all other conditions maintained, the status is certain to be preserved, if improvements, in consequence of better care and selection, are not secured.

COUPLING.

Proper coupling, or rather the coupling of proper animals, has received little attention, and is now confined generally if not exclusively to professional breeders. But it is a subject to which the dairymen can as well as not pay attention with good results. By coupling proper animals, we mean having regard to individual points and qualities, never coupling those having the same defects, either in form or quality. For instance, to illustrate, a cow high on the rump may be safely bred to a bull low on the rump, or vice versa, the result, in all probability, being an offspring with a level rump. This is breeding together opposite extremes, depending on the one to correct the other. But if we breed two sloped rumps together, or two humped rumps, the result would be to exaggerate and intensify or strengthen this deformity in the offspring. So of quality or disposition. A nervous cow bred to a nervous or irritable bull, would be pretty sure to drop a calf that would be more nervous than either sire or dam. But if one of the parents is dull and sluggish and the other irritable and sensitive, the offspring might be an improvement on both. Again, a cow lacking in the quality of richness of milk, though giving a large flow, should not be coupled with a bull descended from a family having the same peculiarity of large flow lacking in richness. But if there is richness on one side and abundance on the other, the coupling of the two might reasonably be expected to result in improvement in the offspring, which might inherit both the large flow and the rich quality. Bad points and qualities are inherited as well as good ones. Hence, the constant aim and care must be to avoid developing what is objectionable as well as to develop what is desired. It must be constantly borne in mind that like begets like. All the trouble attending inbreeding, crossing or grading comes from not properly regarding this fact. Where inbreeding is followed, the only disadvantage arises from the fact that all the animals are likely to have the same defects of form, quality and constitution. But where these are all right, the advantage is that inbreeding fixes the features and qualities and secures the establishment of them in a type or breed. But crossing or grading animals having the same failing will prove just as disastrous as would inbreeding. But crossing may be done in a way to develop good qualities, and these may afterward be fixed by careful selection and inbreeding of offspring. This subject of breeding is one of great importance, and yet little understood. Many things pertaining to it are yet to be settled, though great progress has been made during the last few years, and public attention is being drawn to it as it never was before. It will be found that man can become master of the situation, and may, by observing certain fundamental conditions and varying only the details, breed domestic animals of almost any form, disposition, and quality, that he may desire.

CARE AND KEEP.

Better care and keep, however, are the key notes to improvement. Higher conditions and better surroundings lead to improvements which may be developed into fixed traits by proper selection and coupling, provided the improved environment is maintained. The status can be maintained only by maintaining the conditions. This is what we mean by care. Under this head, we include all that pertains to the health and comfort of the animal. Judicious care is of prime importance not only in breeding but in securing the best results in dairy products. Proper food and drink and enough of it, with shelter, kind treatment, regularity and the most thorough system, must be provided, or corresponding failure, for any and all abuse, neglect or mistake, is sure to follow.

FEEDING STOCK.

The question of feeding stock is yearly rising into greater prominence and importance. Formerly, it was thought that anybody who could throw out coarse fodder and hay to cattle knew enough for all practical purposes about feeding, and that any sort of a shelter, or no shelter, if the animal survived, was sufficient. Better ideas are beginning to prevail. Few men now think they know all that can be learned about feeding stock, and those who know the most are the most anxious to learn. A thorough knowledge of feeding requires a knowledge of physiology and biology, with the chemical composition and nutritive qualities of the different kinds of food. Added to this must be the practical knowledge gained by observation of the effects of the different foods on different animals under various conditions. And when all is known that can be, there will still be room left for the exercise of the best judgment of the feeder as to the conditions and requirements of the animal fed, and as to the quality of the foods available and the quantity and proportions of each.

CARBONACEOUS AND NITROGENOUS FOODS.

It is pretty well known what the constituents of the animal organism are, and what elements of nutrition are required in the food for the sustenance of the animal. Of these primal elements—some twelve or fifteen in number—it is found that, practically, when foods combined contain two of them in proper proportion, the rest are generally present in sufficient quantity. These two are Carbon and Nitrogen, and the foods containing them in relatively large proportion are respectively called carbonaceous and nitrogenous. All foods contain these elements in greater or less proportion. The proper proportion for feeding is found to be about one of nitrogen to five or six of carbon. If the temperature of the weather is low, the proportion of carbon may be raised to eight, and even ten, where little exercise is had—as, for instance, milch cows standing in a cold stable. But, in hot weather, when cows are giving milk, the carbon may be reduced to four and even three—that is, so that there shall be one part of nitrogen to three or four parts of carbon. The carbon is heat and fat producing, and some class it as motor producing, but we think this is a mistake, save so far as heat is essential to motion. We think nitrogen is motor producing as well as muscle producing—or, in other words, that the element which produces the organs of motion also fills them with energy, for the exercise of which heat is essential. We cannot have motion, or even life, much below the normal temperature of about 98 degrees Fahrenheit. At all events, it is found necessary to feed nitrogenous food to all animals that are working hard, to supply the waste of muscle—and we think also to replace the expended energy. Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, in his work on the "Maintenance of Health," published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, says: "The effect of the nitrogen upon the brain is to evolve nerve force freely, and this rules and regulates the actual force which takes its origin in the respiratory foods consumed. These respiratory foods furnish the force itself, but the nitrogenized foods furnish the manifesters of force." It appears to us that the nerve force, which he says is evolved, is all there is of it, save the requisite conditions afforded by heat. Dr. Houghton says: "The hunted deer will outrun the leopard in a fair open chase, because the force supplied to its muscles by vegetable food is capable of being given out continuously for a long period of time; but in a sudden rush at a near distance, the leopard will infallibly overtake the deer, because its flesh food stores up in the blood a reserve of force capable of being given out instantaneously in the form of exceedingly swift muscular action." Dr. Fothergill goes on to say: "Nitrogen is the essential factor in all explosive compounds, from gunpowder to nerve force. It endows the consumer of it with energy and enables him to discharge his force quickly and rapidly." Again, he says of the race-horse: "His food affects his speed and endurance, and without his nitrogenized food he would cut a poor figure at a race, because without it he could not discharge his force fast enough."

WHAT IS CARBON?

It is pure in the diamond, nearly pure in coal, and is the principal constituent of all woody fiber—also of oils, fat, starch, sugar, etc. Nearly all the visible organic world is composed of carbon. It appears to be very plentiful, but of our atmosphere it composes only about four-ten-thousandths, while oxygen, with which it unites to form carbonic acid gas for vegetation to feed on, composes one-fifth and nitrogen four-fifths. Really, we have little trouble in securing carbonaceous foods. The only difficulty is to get them in a digestible form. Only what is soluble can be digested and assimilated by the animal organism. Hence, great care must be taken to get food in a proper condition for animal nutrition.

WHAT IS NITROGEN?

It is almost pure in the albumens; both vegetable and animal. It is nearly pure in the white of egg. Hence, nitrogenous foods are quite commonly called albuminoids. It exists abundantly in all the proteins—as cheese or caseine, fibrin or lean meat, albumen, etc. Nitrogen, in its free state, appears to be an innocuous gas, diluting the oxygen and preventing it from rapidly oxydizing or burning up everything. As before said, it constitutes four-fifths of our atmosphere, but does not appear to be directly appropriated by either vegetables or animals. As food for either, it must be in combination with other elements—especially carbon—and yet it is very difficult to make it unite with other elements, and hard to maintain the union when it is once formed. Its disposition is to break these unions and seek an idle state of freedom. Hence it is that, when held in durance, its constant tendency to free itself makes it the motor force in all animal organisms, and the terrible energy in all explosives. It is secured in the form of ammonia in rain, by a process called nitrification it unites with the soil, and it exists in all decayed animal and vegetable matter in a form suitable for plant food. Men and animals get it by eating vegetables or by eating one another. It is a very abundant and important element, yet very difficult to obtain in an available form for plant and animal food. Fortunately, but comparatively little of it is needed.

COMPOUNDING RATIONS.

By referring to the feed tables furnished by the analysts of this country and Europe, the farmer can learn the constituents of foods. Then, knowing the ration required, he can take different foods and compound in the right proportions aimed at in feeding, whether for work, for growth, for fat, for bare maintenance, or for milk. We give the German standards for feeding animals:

SAMPLE RATIONS.

Dr. Wolf gives an illustration of the standard for a milch cow, by saying that 30 lbs. of young clover hay will keep a cow in good milk; and that this contains of dry organic substance, 23 lbs., of which is digestible—albuminoids 3.21, carbohydrates 11.28, and fat 0.63. This is .71 lb. albuminoids more, and .22 lb. of carbohydrates less, with .13 lb. of fat more, than the standard. Then he takes the richest and best meadow hay, of which 30 lbs. contains of organic substance 23.2 lbs., having digestible—albuminoids 2.49 lbs., carbohydrates 12.75 lbs., and fat 42 lb. This is almost exactly the feeding standard.

As will have been seen by what has preceded, the German standard ration for a milch cow is 24 lbs. of dry organic substance, containing 2.50 lbs. nitrogenous food, and 12.90 lbs. of carbonaceous food. To secure this, Dr. Wolff recommends for every 1,000 lbs. of live weight:

Prof. S.W. Johnson's ration for the same purpose is:

The following milk rations are recommended by Prof. E.W. Stewart:

The following are given by the same author as milk rations:

FATTENING RATIONS.

The following rations are recommended by Prof. E.W. Stewart for fattening cattle. The rations are for 1,000 pounds of live weight:

WORKING RATIONS.

The following are rations for oxen at hard work, as given by Prof. Stewart:

DIGESTIBILITY OF FOODS.

The following table, copied from Prof. Stewart, gives the digestibility of a few of the more common foods: