All in black and white
QUESTION Are all Friesian cows descended from the same bull?
The short answer is no. holstein Friesian cows originated in the Netherlands 2,000 years ago.
Black cattle from Schleswig-holstein in northern Germany and white animals from Friesland in the presentday Netherlands were crossed to create a breed with an impressively high milk yield. Male calves can be fattened up to produce quality beef.
In the U.S. they are called holsteins and are significantly larger than their British counterparts, which we call Friesians. The breed has the name holsteinFriesian in europe.
The British Friesian was established in the home Counties and southern Scotland in the 19th century.
The question may refer to two bulls in the U.S. which, through a poorly regulated approach to artificial insemination in the 1960s, ended up being related to half of all American holsteins.
The breed was brought to the U.S. from the Netherlands by Massachusetts farmer Winthrop Chenery in 1852. Their success saw him import more cows in 1857, 1859 and 1861. Soon, many other American breeders followed suit.
historically, farmers would bring in bulls from other farms to impregnate their cows.
From the 1940s, they began to use artificial insemination. A single dose could be used for a herd of heifers. Soon, technology allowed semen to be frozen, which meant a bull could father calves for decades, even long after he was dead.
The bulls Round Oak Rag Apple elevation and Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief sired fine milk producers, so their semen was used intensively.
Chief is known to have produced 16,000 daughters, 500,000 granddaughters and more than two million great-granddaughters. his sons were also popular sires.
But this has come at a cost. Narrowing the gene pool has resulted in genetic problems. A once rare defect passed on by Chief is thought to have been responsible for 500,000 miscarriages.
QUESTION Did Montenegro have a monarch who turned out to be an imposter?
SCePAN Mali, Stephen the Little, passed himself off in Montenegro as Tsar Peter III of Russia.
A person of unclear origin, he arrived in Montenegro in 1766 and, remarkably, from 1768 to his death in 1773, he was accepted as the ruler of the country. This was despite the fact the real Peter III had died in 1762.
Poet Cesare Augusto Levi says in his work Venezia e il Montenegro: ‘he was of fine presence and well-proportioned form and of noble ways.
‘he was so eloquent that he exercised with mere words a power not only on the multitude, but also on the higher classes.
‘he must certainly have been in St Petersburg before he scaled Montenegro and have known the true Peter III, for he imitated his voice and gestures — to the illusionment of the Montenegrins.’ The key to Scepan’s success at passing himself off as the tsar was that he appeared at the right time.
Montenegro was ruled by the unworldly Prince-Bishop Sava Petrovic Njegos. having spent 20 years in a monastery, he proved unable to control a turbulent nation beset by the Ottoman empire.
Scepan assumed the powers of absolute monarch and proved to be very good at it. he took a tough line with the infighting tribes, unifying the country for the first time in its history.
he made social, administrative and religious reforms, introduced the death penalty, strengthened central government and established a court of tribal chieftains to dispense justice.
Despite his despotic approach, his reign is seen in Montenegro as a time of peace and prosperity.
Scepan was killed by one of his servants in the pay of an Ottoman governor in Albania. his life is celebrated in many Montenegrin works of art and literature. Sophie Keane, Deal, Kent.
QUESTION What is the significance of the small crosses carved into kerbstones around Central London?
MALTeSe crosses, ‘ V’ and ‘ W’ shapes, delta symbols, arrowheads and letters were carved into Victorian paving stones. They are prevalent in central London, but can be found in every British city.
Once you have spotted one, it’s hard to stop looking. Despite how common they are, no one has satisfactorily explained what they represent.
Speculation has ranged from the conspiratorial, such as the idea they guided Freemasons to hidden lodges, to more mundane theories that they are boundary markers; point to the specific use of the pavement, such as market stalls; or identify the location of electricity, gas and water pipes.
Some may be stonemasons’ marks. As most of them were illiterate, they signed their work with a unique symbol.
It is believed that the triangles, crosses and arrows could have been used to delineate the position of a piece of stone in a building or street plan.
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