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"The Kerry Breed"

by Robert Oliphant Pringle

from The Live-Stock of the Farm, published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1886.

In January 2006, I came across this book in a second-hand bookshop in Hamilton, NZ. Pringle was editor of the "Irish Farmers' Gazette". The first edition was published in 1874, and the 1886 edition was the third. The aim of the book was to improve animal production on the farm and it included chapters on a range of animal feeds, as well as the different breeds of farm livestock and their management. Chapter VI was on the characteristics of different breeds of cattle, with a section on the Kerry breed that mentioned Dexters. Much of the section was a direct quote from an article on Irish agriculture that Pringle had published previously in 1872.

Page 115:

The Kerry Breed

The Kerry may be regarded as the only existing native breed of cattle which belongs to Ireland. "There are two varieties of it - first, the true Kerry, and next the 'Dexter.' The former is a light, neat, active animal, with fine and rather long limbs, narrow rump, fine small head, lively projecting eye, full of fire and animation, with a fine white cocked horn tipped with black, and in colour either black or red. Cattle of this description weigh when fat about 4 cwt, some even less; they fatten readily, and their beef is fine in the grain and very rich in flavour. The cows yield rich milk, and the quantity they give, combined with the ease with which they are kept, renders them great favourites as 'fancy' cows in the case of families resid-

Page 116:

ing in suburban villas and the like. The following are the dimensions of a fat Kerry cow, which was awarded a prize at a show of the Royal Dublin Society: 38 inches in height at the shoulder, 70 inches in girth, and 42 inches in length from the top of the shoulder to the tail-head. These measurements indicate a weight of about 30 imperial stones. The Dexter variety is the result of a cross, introduced about fifty years ago by a Mr Dexter; but it is not exactly known what breed that gentleman resorted to for crossing with the Kerry. It is averred by some that the Dexter variety is the result of selection, and not of a cross of another breed. Be that as it may, the points of the Dexter variety are materially different from those of the true Kerry; for the Dexter has a round plump body, square behind; legs short and thick, with the hoofs inclined to turn in; the head is heavy, and wanting in that fineness and life which the head of the true Kerry possesses: and the horns of the Dexter are inclined to be long and straight. ... Of late breeders in Kerry have paid more attention to their native cattle than they did; they have certainly every inducement to do so, for pure-bred Kerry cows and heifers command high prices. The breed was long neglected, and many of the animals still hawked through the country by jobbers under the name of Kerries, are but poor specimens of the breed."¹

1. "Review of Irish Agriculture," by R.O. Pringle. Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. Vol. viii. Second Series. 1872.

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