JERSEY CATTLE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2931, 28 April 1891, Page 2

JERSEY CATTLE.

TO THK EDITOH. Sru, —I have neither the time nor tho iuclination to enter into a controversy, but I cannot see my beautiful and profitable pets so roughly handled as Mr Runciman thought fit to do at the Farmers' Club meeting last Monday evening. He tells us what ugly useless scrubbers they are, and what a calamity it will be to the district if they spread ; and then he tells us that he never owned one, and hopod he never would. So I may be allowed to conclude that his opinion, after these admissions, is not worth much. Like Mr Runciman, 1 have been dairying many years, and the first cow I ever milked was a beautiful Jersey ; and, I venture to say, no breed of cattlo has made such an advance in public favour during the last thirty years—not only in America, where they have almost driven other breeds out of tho dairying districts, but nearly all the gilt-edged butter that we hear so much about ia made from them, Thirty years ago it was a very rare thing to see a Jersey at a cattle show in England, now I see that tho number of entries for Jerseys at the last Royal Show in England outnumbered all others put together. Then, again, Victoria is willing to send to New Zealand :and buy these ugly scrnhbers at from twenty to one hundred guineas each, and in some instances more. One American writer says of them that they have done for tho dairying districts what the Shorthorns have done for the beef districts ; and, notwithstanding Mr Runciman's prejudice against them, they will at no distant date mako their way in the dairying districts of New Zealand. I have been speaking of thum as dairy cattle : now as beef cattle. I am not going to compare them to the Shorthorn, which, in my opinion, has very few equals on first-class land, but on second and third-class land they are out of place. I have a puro Jersey cow, nine years old, with an unbroken pedigree, bred by Mr Thomas Morrin, and about one month from calving, which I should like to compare as a beef cow with Mr Hunciman's Shorthorn-Hereford cross. Again you shall take, say, ten half Jersey and Shorthorn steer calves, and, notwithstanding their utrlv colour, at two or two and a-half years old, they will bring more money in beef than Mr Runciiuan's favourites, both bis to run in the same paddock. Tu comparing Mr Kuneiman's remarks with Mr Reynold's paper, I cannot help feeling that Mr Runcim.iu has gene astray. The title of Mr Reynold's paper was, "The Dairy Cow, and some of her points of usefulness." and ho treated the subject from the dairyman's point of breeding. Mr Runcinians puts a question into Mr Reynold's mouth that. I cannot see he asked—viz., "Which is the most profitable cow for the districtlf it had been asked, the most likely reply to it would have been: It depends entirely whether you want beef or milk. First settle this question, and you will then know what breed of cattlo it will pay best to keep,—Yours. &c., C. Day.