FRENCH DAIRY CATTLE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1676, 13 April 1904, Page 63

FRENCH DAIRY CATTLE

Some particulars regarding the daily cattle of .France are given m the "Tear Book” of the United States Department: ox Agriculture, by llenry E ! . Alvord’. "France," he says, "is a dairying country. and possesses a large number of socalled breeds of cattle. One can hardly sa.y ‘different’ or ‘distinct’ breeds, because i’S.ey seem to be largely of common origin, locally differentiated and belonging to geographic districts along the holders of which they blend in a perplexing way. Nearly all of them are what are called! “dual-purpose' cattle. France prides Herself upon producing all her own beef, and depends largely upon oxen for farm labour. With few exceptions, her cattle are bred primarily t'oi labour, to ' i timately become (poor) beef, and dairy quality i,s at least a secondary consideration, only incidental in some of the breeds. Fine veal is a specialty in Trance, So that cattle which produce large, thrifty, quickgrowing,* and easy-fattening calves are particularly sought, and are highly profitable. Tliei-o are but three racetf of French cattle which seem to deserve vonsideration a,s daily stock. Near the Belgian border, in French Flanders, there is a large, rather rangey cow of a pronounced daily type, and a generous and profitable producer of a medium quality of milk. These ‘Flamandes' are of a solid, dark brown colour, sometimes reddish, and often almost black. They carry no spare flesh, have shiny coats, indicative of health, are good feeders, active and docile. In .size they are about the average, aud in some respects suggest the milking shorthorns. These cattle very justly won the sweepstake prize for dairy animals! at the live stock show of the Paris Exposition of 1300. But it is said that, although lugiged enough at home, they become delicate and always deteriorate rapidly when moved away from tho comparatively small district in which they nad their origin or development. This accounts ior the “Flamandes’ being so little known elsewhere. In Brittany are found tho pretty, active, little black and white cattle of marked dairy quantity of milk for their size, rich in butter fat. This is a true breed, a good one of its kind, and an old hue. Its blood undoubtedly entered largely into the foundation stock of the highly-prized Jersey; yet it is a race of even smaller size, some strains really diminutive. For the United States they are too small Tpr anything -but playthings. In many respects, markings excepted, they remind one more ot the French-Canadian dairy cattle, which leave lately come into prominence, than anything else in America."