CHAPTER L 



THE OLD SHORT-HORN COUNTRY AND 

 ITS CATTLE. 



One bright morning in the month of June a 

 few years since the writer was a passenger in 

 a vehicle that emerged from the environs of 

 the comfortable little city of Darlington, Eng- 

 land once the Short-horn capital into the 

 open country so familiar a century ago to those 

 rare old worthies who gave to the world the 

 breed that forms the subject of our story. 

 Rural England at this season of the year will 

 stir the blood of any human being who has 

 any capacity whatever for the appreciation of 

 pastoral panoramas. When to the natural 

 beauty of the landscape is added the charm of 

 historic association and congenial companion- 

 ship it is indeed not difficult for a lover of Short- 

 horns to while away a summer holiday in the 

 peaceful valley of the river Tees and contigu- 

 ous territory in York and Durham, the ances- 

 tral home of the breed. 



Some Short-horn shrines. Here are the 

 grassy lanes of Hurworth, where the dani of 



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