1 10 CATTLE LONGHORNS 



The first volume of the Herd Book, with an historical 

 preface by John B. Lythall, Bingley Hall, Birmingham, was 

 issued in 1878, but during the eighties the breed was threat- 

 ened with extinction, and the Agricultural Societies dropped 

 it out of their premium lists. The tide soon began to turn 

 in its favour. The Royal Show at Birmingham in 1898 was 

 re-opened to the breed, and the issue of Vol. II. of the 

 Herd Book in 1900, with a preface by T. H. Weetman, the 

 Hon. Secretary of the Longhorn Cattle Society, as one result 

 of the success attained, along with a third and then a fourth 

 vol. in April 1904, marked successive stages of a genuine 

 revival of interest, based upon the recognition of the Long- 

 horn's wonderful hardiness of constitution and other unique 

 qualities for meeting present needs and what bid to be the 

 requirements of the future. A new Longhorn Cattle Society 

 inherited the first volume of the Herd Book. Present-day labour 

 difficulties and narrow margins of profit call for a general 

 purpose animal which will rustle for itself and call for little 

 attention. People begin to realise the fact that the advan- 

 tages to be gained by high pressure and early maturity in 

 high-priced times become reversed under a state of agri- 

 cultural depression, and that the man who can utilise the 

 natural pasture and other crude products of his farm to the 

 fullest and best advantage is the man who produces at least 

 cost per unit of produce and turns loss into profit. The 

 all-important factor is time. The slow or medium maturity 

 animals then become his standbys, and he reaps the benefit 

 of the greatly increased tendency to fatten, which develops 

 with age, exhibited in the difference in this respect between 

 a three-year-old as compared with a two-year-old steer. T. H. 

 Weetman sent four steers of two years and a few months 

 old, valued at 20 each, into Kent to be fattened in October 



1903, which realised an average, when disposed of at Christmas 



1904, of 56 a head. In weight for age, the Longhorn is equal 

 to any other breed. That the Longhorn possesses, in a con- 

 spicuous degree, the capacity of rapid fattening after maturity 

 is reached, is further instanced by the record of " Moss Rose," 

 a cow of W. H. Sale, Arden Hill, Warwickshire. This 

 animal calved in March 1899, and after yielding about 50 

 Ibs. of milk daily, producing 2 Ibs. of butter, she was dried 

 off in September. Not proving in calf, she was fattened and 



