178 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



examining red cloth, the artist has ever and anon to 

 right his power of discrimination by the momen- 

 tary contemplation of its accidental colour, green ; 

 so must the farmer take care to set his vision 

 occasionally. A cow bought in the market, the 

 cynosure of many eyes, may look very shady in the 

 shippon alongside a "Duchess!" You must keep 

 your hand in practice, or you may some day to 

 your sorrow have ingloriously to surrender the 

 belt. 



The exact cross, even in a variegated nondescript, 

 such as the amateur delights in during the days of 

 his early experience — the several elements of heed- 

 less admixture in a mongrel — the eye comes eventu- 

 ally to discern as certainly as the practised artist 

 detects the component colours of a tint upon the 

 landscape. Yet, after all, when you have learnt to 

 distinguish the lines at a glance, above and beyond 

 all this there is requisite that ineffable element — 

 taste. You may teach a lady the theoiy of colours 

 — she may be shown the last Parisian fashions — she 

 may have the most recherche' patterns presented to 

 her — and, after all, not advising with a milliner, she 

 may appear in the Row, what ladies term technically, 

 " a fright." Do what you will, you cannot endow her 

 with the power of selecting what will become her ; 

 or even of putting her things on well when she 

 has them. So is it, too, in the selection of " those 

 horrid shorthorns." 



After all, there is even in this line an ultimate 

 scope, which only genius can attain to. It is but 

 rarely, among even experienced and acknowledged 



