HISTORICAL RECORDS 157 



Iceland, which was settled from Norway in the ninth century, 

 shows that the variety went with the nomads of old days." 



The fact that the two very distinct breeds of cattle for 

 long maintained their individuality, although reared at no 

 great distance from each other, is fully accounted for by 

 their owners being of a different race and of different habits, 

 and having little intercourse with each other. 



Galloway cattle were at one time taken in large numbers 

 by drovers into Norfolk to fatten, and probably bulls may 

 also have been introduced ; but Youatt's statement that they 

 were the origin of the Polled Suffolks will not stand the test 

 of competition with the foregoing hypothesis the Red Polls 

 and the Galloways being different in practically all essential 

 particulars. To our thinking the Red Polls more resemble the 

 Polled Angus, and between these two breeds of Scotch Polls 

 there are sufficient distinctions to indicate different origins. 



John Reeves, a tenant on Holkham Estate, and a yeoman 

 relative, Richard England, of Binham, began about the 

 beginning of last century to blend the two breeds to form the 

 " new kind " of general-purpose beast. It was to be without 

 the horns of " the true Norfolk Red," and the bullocks were 

 " to fatten to about fifty or sixty stones, with as little coarse 

 meat as could be expected." When Reeves retired in 1828 

 his cattle were dispersed " eleven matchless blood-red cows 

 in calf," 1 3 two- and three-year-old heifers in calf, and " a two- 

 year-old blood-red bull, one of the most perfect animals in the 

 Kingdom." England's herd comprised 30 cows of " a 

 beautiful red." Another pioneer was George, of Eaton, near 

 Norwich, who began during the first decade of the nineteenth 

 century to collect a herd of so-called blood-red Polled Suffolk 

 cows. One of the most famous was a Norfolk cow, " Foulsham," 

 bought for 25 guineas from Wale of Foulsham, near Elmham. 

 The Norfolk and Suffolk breeds were " mixed," and close 

 in-and-in breeding by using home-bred bulls was syste- 

 matically practised. 



The name "Norfolk Polled" was in use in 1818, and the 

 breed was then carefully distinguished from Galloways and 

 " Polled Derbys." It is now thought that the latter term, 

 found in an old advertisement, applied to polled cattle of the 

 Shorthorn type then common round Newmarket, and that 

 they are probably closely related to the section of Polled 

 Durhams which sprung from Muley ancestors (p. 99). - 



