PROGRESS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. £07 



indifferent to vulgar traditional prejudices," he enumerared those axioms 

 which must ever be the cardinal rules of the improvers of live stock. " He 

 chose the animals of the f'urm and temperament which showed signs of pro- 

 ducing most fat and muscle," declaring that in an ox " all was useless that 

 was not beef;" that he sought, " by pairing the best specimens, to make the 

 shoulders comparatively little, the hind quarters largo ;" to produce a body 

 " truly circular, with as short legs as possible, upon the plain principle that 

 the value lies in the barrel and not in the legs," and to secure a " small 

 head, small neck, ;ind small bones." As few things escaped his acute eye, 

 he remarked that quick fattening depended much upon amiability of disposi- 

 tion, and he brought his bulls by gentleness to he as docile as dogs. In 

 sheep his " object was mutton, not wool, disregarding mere size," a vulgar 

 test of merit. 



The great physiologist, John Hunter, confirmed in one essential particular 

 the observations of Bakewell, for he asserted that in the human subjects he 

 had examined he found small bones a usual concomitant of corpulence. JMr. 

 Clive, the celebrated surgeon, who paid much attention to the breeding of 

 cattle, also cime to the conclusion tliat extremely lar^e bones indicated a 

 defect in the organs of nutrition. But " fine boned" animals were in fashion 

 when Bakewell commenced his career, and to the majority of people it seemed 

 a step backwards to prefer well made dwarfs to uncouth giants. One or two 

 enliglitened persons having suggested at Ipswich fair that a piece of plate 

 should be presented to Artliur Young for the public service he iiad rendered 

 in introducing the Southdown sheep into Suffolk, a farmer determined to put 

 forth the counter proposition, " that he was an enemy to the county (or 

 endeavoring to change the best breed in England for a race of 7-als/' The 

 tenantry of that period were strong in the self confidence of ignorance. " To 

 attempt to reason with such fellows," said Young of some of those he met 

 with in his tours, " is an absurdity," and he longed to seize a hedge-stake in 

 order to break it about their backs. Even if they were persuaded to try some 

 improvement to which they were not previously inclined, they reported that 

 " their experience" was unfavorable to it — their experience being in reality 

 the foregone conclusion which was antecedent to experience, and which 

 blinded them to the results of experience itself. The graziers who adhered 

 to the old huge-skeletoned race of stock were accustomed to give as the reason 

 for their preference that a beast could not get fat unless there " was room to 

 lay the fat on." It would have been just as rational to argue that none but 

 farmers of large stature could have felt Young's proposed application of the 

 hedge-stake, because in smaller men there would not be room to lay it on. 

 Numbers of short, round, tub-like agriculturists, who uttered the current 

 excuse for breeding bones in preference to flesh, were living representatives of 

 the fallacy of their assertion. But there were others who were not slow to 

 see the truth. A Southdown ram belonging to Arthur Young got by accident 

 to a few Norfolk ewes of a neighboring farmer. When the butcher came in 

 the summer to select some lambs, he drew every one of the Southdown breed, 

 which, he said, were by much the fattest in the floclc. The owner instantly 

 took the hint, Upon the whole the principles of Bakewell were more favor- 

 ably received than most innovations in that day, and some of the pupils suc- 

 ceeded in improving upon the stock of the master. The brothers Coilings in 

 Durham established the Durham or Teeswater breed, now known as the 

 " Short-horn." Quartly successfully applied himself to improving the North 

 Devon. Price took up the Herefoni, and EUman of Giynde the Southdown 

 sheep, then little better than half a dozen other heathland kinds. The emu- 

 lation gave rise to the forerunner of the modern fat cattle show, in singla 

 oxen of monstrous size, dragged round the country in vans, and with such 

 success that in 1800 a Mr. Day refused 200O/.. for the Durham ox he had pur- 

 chased two months previously for 250/. Graziers who were not able to join 

 the sheep-shearings of Ilolkham or VVoburn, who did not read the agricul- 



