COWS IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 12

COWS IN BRITAIN

JERSEYS AND ALDERNEYS

'The Jersey cow which has been proclaimed the supreme champion of England at the Dairy Show represents a breed long known to English people only as "Alderney," and readers of "Cranford" will remember that it was an "Alderney" cow which Miss Betsy Barker "looked on as a daughter," says the "Manchester Guardian." Actually the two breeds of the Channel Islands are Jersey and Guernsey, both of which were classed together as "Alderneys" when, early in the nineteenth century, the breeds began to be known in England. At ihat time (says Housman in his "Cattle"), "commanding a little more than the market value of ordinary English dairy stock, they were regarded as the fancy cattle of the rich. Their admirers were found, however, chiefly in the seaward districts of the South of England, inasmuch as cattle born and reared in the genial climate of Jersey, fostered under the master's eye, snugly housed in winter and tethered in summer close to his home, were at first more fitted for an equable climate in the neighbourhood of the southern shores than in the colder winter and windy springtide of the central and northern provinces." Indeed, a little earlier they had iteen considered unsuited altogether for any part of England. Improved communications encouraged people to acclimatise the Channel Islands breeds all over the country, and it was found that they adapted themselves well to different climates.