The previous post in the Alexanderwohl series (here) prompted a question: What do we know about the cattle and horses that the early settlers brought from Prussia/Poland and purchased in Molotschna? This post is a first step toward an answer. We begin with the cattle.
As noted earlier, Alexanderwohl’s original settlers brought twenty-nine head of cattle on their journey from Przechovka to Molotschna. Two settlers had four cattle each, four had three each, four more had two each, and one settler had one cow. So what kind of cattle did the Mennonite settlers likely bring?
The papers of Johann Cornies offer us the earliest answer to the question. In a letter addressed to the provincial governor Andrei M. Fadeev, dated 10 January 1826 (so six years after the establishment of Alexanderwohl), Cornies refers to the “Dutch cows” in the Molotschna villages (Cornies 2015, 53). In a later letter written to Major Mark, who is otherwise unknown, Cornies refers to the colonists’ “Frisian cattle” (Cornies 2015, 364).
Both of Cornies’s references are to the same breed, which we can more precisely identify as the East Frisian, or East Friesian. Locating East Frisia on a map (see here) helps one to understand Cornies’s use of the term Dutch as equivalent to East Friesian: the area of East Frisia, although technically part of Germany, was immediately to the east of the Netherlands. The entire Holland–Frisian area was known for its dairy cattle, and the East Friesian was a subtype of the broader Hollander type. (For a full-length history of Holstein-Friesian cattle, see Houghton 1897, which is freely available online.)
Cornies provides the most extensive contemporary description of the East Friesian breed in his letter to Andrei M. Fadeev:
There are several good, authentic Dutch cows in our villages, and each produces no fewer than nine to ten puds [1 pud = 36 pounds] of good butter, or fifteen to sixteen puds of cheese in one year, under conditions of correct, efficient milking, and clean, tidy management of the milk itself. This assumes the cow has a good, regular build, is healthy, is at the best and strongest age, and has ample pasture and healthy, nutritious winter fodder. Naturally, such an average cannot be counted on from ten or more cows, because among ten cows, there will also be some that are younger or older and organically varied to some degree. These would give less butter on average. It is obvious that illness produces great changes in the flow of milk. Variations can be expected from the cows in question, when they may give insufficient milk for days or weeks, even with the best attention and handling. (Cornies 2015, 53)
The Mennonite dairy cows were clearly productive, but, being nonnative, they were also susceptible to the livestock diseases that periodically plagued the region. Cornies’s 1834 letter to Major Mark reflects this reality:
At your request, my friend Tobias Voth has asked me to purchase two good milk cows for you. Much as I would like to oblige, I regret to say that horned cattle have suffered greatly over the past year. Good cattle are difficult to find because cattle plague and fodder shortages have resulted in the loss of many of our best animals. Few genuine Frisian cows remain, and any still alive after these disasters are mostly in the hands of wealthy persons who would not part with them at any price. Middling and poor cows are available occasionally, especially where the money crisis has not been so acute, but these would hardly meet with your approval. I would prefer not to make authorized purchases of such cattle. As you can see, esteemed Major, good cows cannot be bought here this year. (Cornies 2015, 364)
To compensate for this susceptibility to disease, the Molotschna farmers crossbred their East Friesian cattle with local varieties. Cornelius Krahn explains:
The crossing was made with carefully selected specimens of the East Frisian cattle which they had brought along and the Ukrainian gray cattle as well as Kalmuk cattle. The product of this crossing became known as a Molotschna cow or the German Red cow. The average annual milk production per cow was upward of 580 gallons and the fat content was 3.8 to 4 percent. The breeding of the pure East Frisian cow was also continued. (Krahn 1955)
Helmut Huebert adds:
The German Red Cow (Russian: Krasnaya Nyemka) was developed by the Mennonites by crossing the strongest breeds of their East Frisian type with local cattle such as the grey Ukrainian and the Nogaier herds. This produced a new breed which gave a little less milk but was hardier. (Huebert 1986, 140–41)
Huebert goes on to note that in Hierschau of the latter nineteenth century “Each farm had perhaps half a dozen cows, used mostly for milk and butter production. Hierschau had a bull, on occasion perhaps a number of them, used by all farmers for breeding purposes. The Schulzenbott [village assembly] supervised the management of the village bulls (Huebert 1986, 141).
The situation in Alexanderwohl of the 1820s no doubt differed significantly. Most families in the first years after the village was founded had only two cows, not half a dozen. Over time, of course, the herds of some presumably grew, although harsh winter storms and lack of winter forage sometimes led to severe losses (see Cornies 2015, 29).
In addition, it seems most likely that the Przechovka immigrants who did not previously own cattle purchased local breeds from the Ukrainian or Nogai herds. Although it is conceivable that earlier Molotschna Mennonites had East Friesian cattle to sell, it is far more reasonable to imagine that the cattle purchased with government loans were Ukrainian or Nogai. Still another letter from Cornies offers an enticing look at the Molotschna cattle market in 1825, just four years after Alexanderwohl’s founding:
The shortage of money remains dire, however. It seems that livestock still surviving after last winter cannot be sold at any price. The price for the best Ukrainian cows was twenty rubles at the annual markets in May, but there were still not enough buyers. Thousands of head were left unsold and their poor owners were forced to return to their children, who were waiting painfully for the bread their father was going to buy when he sold his livestock. (Cornies 2015, 29)
At this point in time, Ukrainian cattle were regularly sold at an annual market in May. If this practice was in place in 1821, one might well imagine that Alexanderwohl’s founders began their own small herds by purchasing Ukrainian cattle at the annual market in May. Where this market was located we cannot yet say.
What we can say is that some of Alexanderwohl’s original settlers began their Molotschna lives with the highly productive East Friesian dairy cows, while other villagers probably had to settle for less productive but hardier local breeds. Over time, one would assume, cross breeding took place with most herds, so that most Alexanderwohl farmers ended up with larger herds comprising most the German Red cow. Eventually, to jump far ahead in the story, transportation within the region improved to the extent that “the Mennonites found a good market for butter and cheese in the cities of Berdyansk, Sevastopol, Yevpatoria, Kerch, Taganrog and Ekaterinoslav” (Krahn 1955). So it was that the small herds that originally met the needs of the individual families grew into a large enterprise that both nourished many and enriched the farmers who owned them.
Works Cited
Cornies, Johann. 2015. Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies. Volume 1: 1812–1835. Translated by Ingrid I. Epp. Edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples. Tsarist and Soviet Mennonite Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Houghton, Frederick Lowell. 1897. Holstein-Friesian Cattle: A History of the Breed and Its Development in America. Brattleboro, VT: Press of the Holstein-Friesian Register. Available online here.
Huebert, Helmut T. 1986. Hierschau: An Example of Russian Mennonite Life. Winnipeg: Springfield.
Krahn, Cornelius. 1955. Agriculture among the Mennonites of Russia. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Available online here.
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