122 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to resolve itself into its original elements, to breed back towards 

 one or other of the kinds of which it was at first composed. 



By races, are understood such varieties as were moulded to their 

 peculiar type by natural causes, witli no interferance of man, no 

 intermixture of other varieties, and have continued substantially 

 the same for a period beyond which the memory and knowledge of 

 man does not reach. Such are the North Devon cattle, and it is 

 fortunate that attention was drawn to the merits of this variety 

 before facilities for intercommunication had so greatly increased as 

 of late, and while yet the race in some districts remained pure. 

 All that breeders have done to better it, is by selections and rejec- 

 tions from within itself; and so, much improvement has been 

 effected without any adulteration. Consequently we may antici- 

 pate that so long as no crossing takes place, there will be no varia- 

 tion except such as is necessarily due to the conditions under 

 which they are reared, as climate, food, habit and the like. 



Among the established breeds of cattle the Improved Short- 

 horns are the most fashionable, and the most widely diffused ; and 

 where the fertility of the soil, and the climate, are such as to allow 

 the development of their peculiar excellencies, they take a high 

 rank as a meat-producing breed. Their beef is deemed hardly 

 equal in quality to that of the Devons, Herefords or Scots, the fat 

 and lean being not so well mixed together and the flesh of coarser 

 grain. But they possess a remax-kable tendency to lay on fat and 

 flesh, attaining greater size and weight, and coming earlier to 

 maturity than any other breed. These properties, together with 

 their symmetry and stately beauty, make them very popular in 

 those counties of England, where they originated, and wherever 

 else they have been carried, provided, their surroundings are such 

 as to meet their wants. It is said that in the rich pastures of 

 Kentucky and in some other parts of the west, they seem as much 

 at home as on the banks of the Tees. The Short-horns have also 

 been widely and successfully used to cross witli most other breeds, 

 and with inferior mixed cattle, as they are found to impress strongly 

 upon them their own cliaracteristics. 



Without entering into the question of its original composition, 

 or of its antiquity, regarding both of which much doubt exists, it 

 may sufEce here to say, that about a hundred years ago, Charles 

 Colling and others entered zealously and successfully into an 

 attempt to improve them by careful breeding, in whose hands they 



