THE BEEF BREEDS 



LECTURE NO. 7. 



SHORTHORN CATTLE THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



I. This breed of cattle is so named from the 

 shortness of the horns which characterize it. 



(1) It is also known as the Durham, from the county in 

 which it originated. 



(2) .These terms are now regarded as synonymous and 

 interchangeable. 



II. The precise origin of the Shorthorn, like 

 that of nearly all the other British breeds of cattle, 

 is involved in much obscurity. 



(1) The Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, who 

 conquered England, in turn brought cattle with them that were 

 successively crossed on the native breeds, and this in part 

 accounts for the variety of these. 



(2) The lack of interchange in live stock for centuries 

 after the Norman conquest favored the development of dis- 

 tinctive types, through the modifying influences of climate, 

 soil, shelter and treatment. 



(3) Thus it was, that in the rich pasture lands of the 

 counties of Durham and Yorkshire, and especially in the 

 valley of the River Tees, a comparatively large type of cattle 

 existed several centuries ago, the ancestors of our modern 

 Shorthorns. 



(4) For a long time there were two independent strains 

 of ancestry, viz: The Teeswater and the Holderness; but these 

 have long since been blended through the almost indiscriminate 

 crossing of their descendants. 



III. Those Teeswater and Holderness pro- 

 genitors of the modern Shorthorn possessed high 

 and broad carcasses, good milking qualities and an 

 aptitude to fatten ; but their flesh was coarse and 

 accompanied by a large amount of offal. 



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