JERSEY CATTLE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5491, 23 October 1929, Page 2

JERSEY CATTLE.

ORIGIN LOST IN OBSCURITY.

PURITY’ ALWAYS MAINTAINED.

Although associated in name with the Island of Jersey, the origin of ,the Jersey breed of cattle is lost in obscurity, but there appears good ground for the assumption that it had its rise on the adjacent coast of Brittany. For generations, however, Jersey has-been its home, and great care has been taken by the islanders to maintain its purity. With this object an Act .was passed as early as 1763 prohibiting the importation of cattle from France ; in 1789 another Act, more stringent than the first, came into force, under which any person convicted of introducing into the island any cow, heifer, calf, or bull from France was subject to a fine of £2OO, and by a subsequent Act passed in 1826, with a view “to preserve the original breed from all admixture,” this fine was increased to £lOOO.

Perhaps the earliest record extant of these cattle being imported to England is that of twelve cows and heifers and two bulls, which were taken over in 1747 for the Duke of Richmond at ■an average cost of £4 9s' per head. In 1811 23 cows and heifers and a bull were secured for Lord Braybrooke’s herd at Audley End, at a cost of nearly £l9 each. About this time an increased amount of interest was excited in the breed.