172 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



These figures would hardly represent the relative im- 

 portance of the same breeds in Great Britain. Probably 

 the supremacy of the Shorthorn would be less marked, 

 and there are several other important breeds — such as the 

 Devon, Sussex, Galloway, Ayrshire, Black Welsh, High- 

 land, Lincolnshire Red, and Longhorn — which would have 

 to be taken into account. It is to be hoped also, though 

 not perhaps with very great confidence, that the propor- 

 tion of cross-bred bulls in use on this side of St. George's 

 Channel is substantially less than the one-fourth which 

 are found in Ireland. 



In France, although the information collected at the 

 time of the special agricultural census held every ten 

 years is very much more complete and detailed than we 

 are able to obtain in this country, no attempt is made to 

 enumerate the number of animals of particular breeds. 

 It happens, however, that this subject has recently been 

 investigated with exhaustive care by M. de Lapparent, 

 the Inspector-General of Agriculture, 1 and from the result 

 of his inquiries it is possible to ascertain the relative 

 importance and distribution of the different breeds of 

 cattle. It appears that the number is considerably 

 greater than in this country, although many of the older 

 varieties are disappearing. In 1881, M. Demote distin- 

 guished thirty-eight breeds, but M. de Lapparent con- 

 siders that this should now properly be reduced to twenty- 

 three without counting " les Durhams " (Shorthorns). 

 The number of cattle estimated as belonging to a parti- 

 cular breed is about 7,000,000, which, applied to the 

 census figures for 1892, would leave about 5,500,000 as 

 cross-breds " more or less indefinable." The most im- 

 portant breed is the Normande, which occupies the 

 departments of Manche, Calvados, Orne, Eure, Seine 

 Inferieure, and Eure-et-Loir, and extends its influence 

 more or less into all the departments adjacent thereto. 



1 " fitude sur les races, vari6tes et croisements de 1'espece bovine 

 en France": Ministere de l'Agriculture, " Annales," 1902. 



