Agricultural and PastoraL FRENCH BREEDS OF CATTLE.

Otago Witness, Issue 569, 24 October 1862, Page 6

Agricultural and PastoraL FRENCH BREEDS OF CATTLE.

In reference to tlie iast shew of c ittlc by the French Agricultural Society, at Pois«v, wo find the following very interesting particulars in the Gardeners' Chronicle: —

"France has six agricultural divisions, eich two-thirds as hr^e as all England ; and to c >mpivhond the difference* pwiaininsj to the native creeds it is necessary 1o know somewhat ol" the lands on which they are respectively found. A few woids will s iSicf 4 . I. lathe north-western division wo see the most ; tlvance 1 husbandly, the most important centres of niamt'actuiin^ industry, and thelargeat means of camuiunications by railway, roads, canals, and liveis. One-sixth the territory of France, it contains more than a fourth part of the population, and contributes nearly half the national roenuc. 2. The flourishing department of Le Nord may rank with the finest English counties. The marshes and sirable lands of Flanders display the most extensive culture and profuse manuring ; and, while England devotes three-quarters of her area to the grazing of cattle, Flanders employs only one quarter, yet keeps a larger proportion of stock. 3. Le Nord is also a land of com, ilax, oleaginous seeds, of lucrative niral manufacture in oil mills, distilleries, breweries, potato-starch works, and sugar mills. The growth of beetroot for sugar is the main feature of i!ic farming ; and the feeding of stock on the pulp and leaves of the raw material has multiplied the number of cattle sixtecn-fold since the commencement of this trade. 4. Xormandy is a countiy of pastures and large dairy farms, held under long leases, and not by the system of metayage, ho prevalent in the south, a country also of fine merino sheep, of abundant poultry, and good wages for labour. In the north-eastern division the barren hills of Cham pagne embosom its famed vinejards. and the farmhouses are grouped in villages, whence issue to the fields at dawn the cows and sheep obedient to the herdsman's horn. Burgundy glories in its vine-clad hills of the Cote DOr ; and Franche Compte, on the slopes of the Jura, rears dairy cattle, its little farmers associating in S\>iss fashion in co-operative dairies for chce r e-making on a large scale. The western division, jutting out into the Atlantic, and watered by the sp'-oiding Loire, yields its fertility to the toils of prospeious husbandmen, vine-dressers, and gardeners. The valley of the Loire is well called the garden 0! France ; Sair.tognc and Angumois distil cognac and the Celtic cultivators of Brittany rear their noted hei'iis of milch kinc. The central divisiou consists half of mountain, as the ranges of Auvergne and Limousin — and half of barren plain, as the dpsolate desert ol Pologne. The province of Berri, where the most ant-que rural life may be seen, is being tiansfoimed by the enterprising agiicultuic of it 3 lar^e proprietors. Tiie southwestern division is two-thi ds in mountain beneath the -Pyrenees, the remainder a plain watered by the Garonne. It is a poor district, having millions of acres of reelaimuble land, in a climate which educes agricultural products out of many kinds of vegetation, the chesnut yielding an abundant edible crop, the walnut furnishing onethird of the oil made in France, while plums and dried fruits arc exported in prodigious quantity. The vineyards of Bordeaux and Toulouse form one-third of those in till France. In the last or south-eastern division the principal feature is the valley of the Rhone, with mar.y large commercial towns. In the distikt of Tre~vaux a large tract of clay country is artificially flooded for the breeding of fish. In the Cevenuts are found the mulberry plantations, v.ilh their silkworms. Olive groves abound, and a succession of harvests of madder, tobacco, roots, vegetables, and wheat, are ripened by the fervid sun m the well-wateieJ valleys. The tioj icai climate of Provence causes the palm and the orange 10 flourish in the open air ; but wide districts are infertile, wilier from the destructive violence of mountain torrents, or a lack of the Italian irrigation practised in the county of Avignon. In winter, the waste plain of Aries grazes the fine- -iwio' led sheep that, in migratoy flocks 10,000 to 40,000 each, headed by trained companies of goats with bells round their necks, are driven in spring a month's journey to the slopes of the Alps. Now the extraordinary diversities of climate, soil, situation, and peculiarities of husbandry in these six grand divisions of France have developed more than a score breeds of native cattle ; which have been classified, however, under six or seven well-defined types. The north-western aud western divisions, being preeminent for dairying — supplying most of the 16,000,000 ponnds of butter sold yearly in the Halle of Paris— possess three noted b eeds of dairy cattle. The " Flemish " cows, of which the department of Lc Nord has 200,000, are very celebrated as milkers, their butter being esteemed as unsurpassed in quality, if not the best known. Stall-fed in winter, in the most liberal yet economical manner, and grazed on splendid pasture or clover in the summer, ordinary cows give eight or nine quarts daily winter and summer; the finest cows during the time they are at their best, yield sixteen to twenty quarts daily. But they arc* considered as slow feeders, the oxen demanding the Y^ry highest fi ol win n fattening If thei c is a point in which our English cattle are deficient it is in feats at the pail 5 but we certainly could not advise any importation of the blood of these Flemish cows when we have Irish and Ayrshire milkers, equal in dairy merit, and at the same time thrifty feeders. For ivilking and creaming qualities, and producing rich yellow butter, our Channel Island cows are superior to the Flemish. Some give as much as twenty to twenty-six quarts of milk daily, and many yield lOlbs. up to I4lbs, of butter each weekly. And this is without the corn, meal, cooked foods, and distillery nutriment with which the Flemish cattle are favoured. Moreover, the Channel Island stock, although diminutive, have tlie merit of fattening rapidly, and yielding excellent meat. Flemish cattle are of a dark red color, large framed, lon< rlegged, and commonly ill-shaped. The few of those oxen exhibited have little flesh upon them, and one crossed w ith a shorthorn is big, but of low quality. The few FJanders cows, too, at Poissy, possess little. mei it in the eyes of cither butchei or dairyman. The brindled, and black and yellow-streaked "Norman" breed thrives upon its luxuriant native pastures, but on poorer forage quickly degenerates. Its great size and substantial frame fits it for being moulded into a race of fine meatproducing animals. The effect of crossing with the shorthorn is evidenced at the present show in removing the faults of angularity in form and overplus of bone, and giving more rapid fattening propensity. Thus, comparing one seven-year" old Norman ox with a four-year-old crossbred, we observe that while the height is reduced seven inches, the length from tail to shoulder lessened by eleven inches, and the neck shortened seven inches, the girth is not much altered, being eight feet six inches in the crossbred, instead of nine feet one inch in the three-year-old Norman. The form is compact, and the flesh of beautiful quality. The cows are superb milkers, though of slow growth and difficult to fatten, but a few successive crossings with shorthorn bulls produes most excellent animals. One of these exhibited is a splendid cow, with the character of a prime shorthorn, especially broad hips, good back, and handsome head. The third variety of milch kine is the little "Breton," famous for its diminutive proportions, its fine bone, and color in patches of black and white. This native of tie heaths of Brittany is very popular, partly because cheap to purshase, partly because a pretty toy animal for the suburban resident, and partly because of its supposed large supply of milk in proportion to the food consumed. There appear to be no reliable grounds for this opinion ; experience would show 'that the Alderneys are very far superior in this respect. Bred on rich land, the size of the breed increases ; a cross with the shorthorn is found remarkable for early maturity and beautiful quality of meat, and crossing with Ayi shire gives us a valuable ox as well as a first rate dairy cow, well exemplified in those now exhibited. In the central division of France, along the upper valley of the Loire, we find the Charolaiß breed or native French shorthorn, distinguished by its white coat. It is rather symmetrically and compactly formed, but. smaller than our shorthorn ; but it is not meritorious in the main points of feeding quickly or yielding milch milk. Crossing- with English shorthorn's is largely practised, giving a produce of larger frame, better fore-quarter, better loin and rump, of kindly-handling flesh, robust constitution, fine bone, aud with a handsome head ; but the difficulty is to preserve the white coat, which white shorthorn bulls do not always perpetuate. The ptjre Charolais now at Poissy are a surprising improvement upon the shovif^of 1857 ; they have good ijoqnds of beef, fell phißes, short ne^kg, an 4, snort good heads, displaying, however, too many ftoliow backs, narrow rumps, and the defect of the shoulder-point and elbow-joint standing out fcUHQIt to a deformity. Many C hftrolais crosies

with s 1 o-.th irn ar«i exlVl i'ed, most of thorn very (xcclknt :n!ima\ incited. Tliev .'t<e uenc 'i!iv

\»!'l! 1o:mt;(i. covciii<l with plenty of raA ik'h, though tii" white coat has cli-m^id to Liinll", ixilfor iijjlit yellow roan. S.ilers, Auu ricne. and Limousin have duvelnpol breeds of draught oxen Tli<jS 1 is oittb aic <if large ,-i/e, ol hriylu red color, with upturned hoi us ; some or tlu-in stand ibur me!.'-, Inulier at the luiu than 'Uth • shoulder, and the shoulder-blade and elbow-joint arc immense, while the ribs are pinched in. They arc ma.ie into beef at ->even to ten joars o'd. Tln-o shown younger eai-y very little nit i.t The Limousin arc of a yellow brown or dark fawn color, with upturned horns, having purple tips. They show many level backs, s )me {>oud i ounds, and some nice firm meat ; but the defective shoulder is observable— one baa-t Ins a hollow eight inches deep immediately behind the elbow. Sjmc of the shorthorn and Limousin crosses tit once exhibit mast of the faults amended, several are heavy fleshed animals with a nice quniicy and kindly coats.' 5