La première carte des races bovines en France

SUMMARY The first map of French horned cattle breeds, worked out by Emile Baudement and dated 1857, was published in 1862 (in a work quoted above, note 1). Besides France (Corsica excepled), it includes Savoy and the county of Nice (both annexed in 1860) and Western Switzerland. An introduction deals with reproductive organs and breeding ways (cross breeding, selection and so on). The coloured map is to scale of 1 : 50,000. In the legend, the author has called breeds not only the real breeds in the zootechnie sense of the word, but also groups which are not very distinct and homogeneous. We enumerate the breeds and groups, some still existing, some others being extinct or much on the down grade, giving information when necessary about their stale in 1857 and their present state. Then comes the influence of foreign breeds, e. g. the Dutch breed (which the present « pie-noire » breed derives from, the second one in France to-day from the point of view of spreading and number), and the Swiss breeds (which the group of « pie-rouge de l'Est » breeds derives from, which is now quite wide-spread). We have added (Baudemenl did not do so on his map, but he mentioned it in his introduction) the adoption of the English Durham breed (Shorthorn improved), which at present forms the background of two French breeds : « Maine-Anjou » (Lower Maine and Nothwestern Anjou) and « Armoricaine » (Western Brittany).Musset René. La première carte des races bovines en France. In: Norois, n°95 ter, Novembre 1977. Géographie rurale. pp. 193-198