1 76 CATTLE GALLOWAY 



different characteristics of the Black Polled breeds, although 

 the greater prepotency of one bull, and also the fact that 

 second crosses even by the same parents are at times more 

 variable in colour than first crosses, may claim a share of the 

 influence at work. The breed did not acquire this special 

 prepotency, as improved cattle have usually done, by close- 

 breeding on both the male and the female sides. Close- 

 breeding has been practised only within recent years, as may 

 be gathered from their wonderful hardiness of constitution 

 and also from their being, under natural home conditions, 

 rather slower than most breeds in coming to maturity. Still, 

 under forced feeding from early youth, the great wealth of 

 constitution enables them to stand the unnatural pressure, 

 and to rank well with early maturity breeds. No great so- 

 called " improver " ever rose to do work like that of the 

 Collings upon the Galloway breed. But the work was well 

 done under the fostering care of the noblemen and gentlemen 

 of Galloway, towards the end of the eighteenth and early in 

 the nineteenth century. Besides the family of the Earl of 

 Selkirk, also those of Lord Daer and the Earl of Galloway, 

 were the Murrays, Herons, Gordons, Maxwells, Maitlands, 

 M'Dowalls, Cathcarts, Hawthorns, and Stewarts. The old 

 breeders knew well that to attempt to improve them on the 

 lines adopted by Shorthorn men, to increase their size and 

 lessen the period spent in coming to maturity by close- 

 breeding, meant ruin to the constitution of the breed in the 

 matter of withstanding the cold and inclement weather to 

 which they are exposed under natural conditions in their 

 native district. It is impossible to obtain excellence in 

 regard to rapid maturity by the usual course of in-and-in 

 breeding, and retain the hardihood necessary in mountain 

 cattle. This country already possesses an abundance of 

 breeds that fatten quickly, and it would be a misfortune if a 

 breed of animals that, with open-air quarters -both summer 

 and winter, after the first year is past, now produces the 

 finest quality of beef, often on inferior food and within 

 adverse climatic surroundings, were thoughtlessly and ignor- 

 antly sacrificed in the rush for early maturity. We have not 

 yet seen the final results of the system of in-and-in breeding 

 which has been going on more or less closely for a hundred 

 years ; but the time may come when it will be necessary to 



