CONDITION OP NATIVE CATTLE. 37 



they have long been kept, and now and then a Kyloe, from the 

 South of Scotland. From all these sources, our native cattle 

 originated, and so strongly have their different characteristics 

 prevailed, that even now, in the localities where they have long 

 been kept, an occasional one may be found in which a prepon- 

 derance of the original blood "crops out," denoting its proba- 

 ble descent. 



As emigration proceeded from the eastern coast to the 

 interior, their neat cattle went with the people, intermixing 

 still more in their new and scattered localities, until they became 

 an indefinite compound of all their original breeds, and compos- 

 ing, as we now find them, a multitude of all possible sorts, 

 colors, shapes and sizes. Thus our "native cattle," as we call 

 them, have no distinctive character, or quality, although in some 

 of the States, as a stock, they are better than in others. In the 

 rough lands of New England where oxen were, and are still 

 chiefly used for farm labor, and the dairy has long been an 

 important branch of agricultural industry, their oxen are admir- 

 able for work, and their cows celebrated for their dairy qualities. 

 They had also been bred with more care to selection than in 

 almost any other section. The farmers preferred the red color, 

 and high, spreading horns, leaning more towards the Devons, and 

 Herefords. In fact, during the last century, and the earlier part 

 of the present, the New England cattle were spoken of by 

 many partial admirers as a "breed," so carefully had certain 

 qualities been cultivated in them by their breeders. The "South 

 Branch" of the Potomac, in Western Virginia, a broad, fertile, 

 and fine pastoral region, has long been, down to a late day, 

 celebrated for its fine cattle. From them sprung the well-known 

 herds of the "Blue Grass" regions of Kentucky, and the Scioto 

 valley, famous in the Philadelphia and Baltimore markets as 

 beef cattle, before the short-horns of the "Patton stock," and 

 the ''importations of 1817" were sent among them. 



