THE JERSEY BREED

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25739, 26 February 1949, Page 5

THE JERSEY BREED

Reflections of a Jersey Breeder. By B. H. G. Arkwright. Seeley Service and Co. Ltd. 256 pp. Mr Arkwright, a well-known English breeder, show judge, and former president of the English Jersey Cattle Society, naturally concentrates in this book on the problems of establishing, maintaining, and managing a Jersey herd in English conditions. That makes enough difference to keep it out of the line of direct and continuous profit for New Zealand breeders and herdsmen, but it is never far out. The reader who knows enough to keep the difference in mind and allow for it will never be misled and will steadily and profitably enjoy himself in Mr Arkwright’s company. This is not a text-book; it may be guessed that the last thing Mr Arkwright could be induced to do would be to write one. One of his favourite doctrines is that the Jersey man must go on educating himself; and the fallacy of a textbook is the fallacy of a short-cut to knowledge. “That’s what it says in the book.” This book does not lay down the law; but it records experience, considers experience, and shows with excellent good sense how the most is to be made of experience, thoughtfully pursued and studied. Mr Arkwright, by the way, mentions two physical peculiarities which he has never seen on any but a good cow: “a knotty protrusion at the extreme top of the back of the udder, said to be a milk vein . . . and two small bony prominences about the level of the spine at the junction of the pelvis.”