50 BAKEWELL AND THE GEAZIER'S AKT 



nised. ' Cattle,' wrote Culley in 1809, ' were more like 

 ill-made black horses than an ox or a cow ; nothing would 

 please but elephants and giants.' The favourite type were 

 the gaunt Holderness breed, because they offered most 

 space for the laying on of flesh. Oxen were j^rized for 

 their power of draught ; parish bulls were selected for 

 those qualities which in Obadiah's pet were alleged to be 

 wanting. No attention, except, as Hartlib allowed, in 

 Lancashire and the northern counties, was paid to breed : 

 it was a promiscuous union of nobody's son with every- 

 body's daughter. Thus misshapen wall-sided beasts were 

 scattered all over the country, and prizes were offered for 

 the animal with the longest legs. Similarly sheep were 

 tall, unthrifty beasts, valued for points which were absurd 

 because they were useless. Wiltshire breeders demanded 

 a horn which fell back so as to form a semicircle, in 

 front of which the ear projected ; Norfolk flockmasters 

 valued the length and spiral form of the horn and the 

 blackness of the face and legs; Dorsetshire breeders 

 staked everything on the horn projecting forward, so 

 that the ear was behind. Rams were, in fact, selected 

 for horns, legs, and faces. Each county had its breed, 

 unknown beyond its borders. Ry elands were limited to 

 Herefordshire, old Norfolks to Norfolk, Southdowns to 

 Sussex. The only exceptions were Welsh sheep, which 

 were driven up to London for their mutton, and Hamp- 

 shire downs, which seem to have been known in the 

 seventeenth century as Hertfords. Bakewell's predecessor 

 in sheep-farming was J. Allom, a breeder of local fame. 

 His own experiments were made on the ' old Leicester- 

 shire' or Warwickshire sheep crossed with the Ryeland. 

 Marshall thus describes the ' true old Warwickshire ' 

 ram : — ' His frame large and loose ; his bones heavy ; his 



