210 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



to preserve the symmetry of the offspring on a scale 

 at all correspondent to the parents. " The bulls of 

 any extraordinary size are seldom handsome in all 

 their points," wrote Youatt, in the course of his re- 

 marks upon the Devon breed of cattle. 



" Too high, sir, too high," the Druid informs us, in 

 his sketchy interesting volume, will the veteran Sir 

 Tatton exclaim pleasantly at the sight of anything in 

 horseflesh over 15.2. In regard to cattle, Bakewell's 

 maxim was, "the smaller the bone the truer the 

 make of the beast." But you might as well shout to 

 the winds as preach this to the second and third-rate 

 farmers, whose own obstinacy alone keeps them years 

 in the background. To please this sort get a horse 

 with a monstrous hairy set of legs, coarse hips, and a 

 tall crest : anything to catch the eye, and give the 

 idea, however falsely, of size. They cannot compre- 

 hend, what is so well known to the artistic and 

 intelligent, that deformed or disproportioned animals 

 of necessity look bigger than a symmetrical one. 

 Take a bull like Exquisite, or a horse like Chester 

 Emperor, and add but a quarter of an inch to each 

 joint — the knee, fetlock, elbow, &c. — and you have 

 him raised some three inches at once ; but he will 

 still look small by the side of another only the 

 same height as himself, who has had the three 

 inches stuck on at once in one place, to his arm, 

 say, or any other limb, without increasing his depth 

 in proportion. 



But, as regards cattle, even could you make certain 

 of preserving in the offspring the symmetry of the 

 parents on a large scale, the verdict of all intelligent 



