CHAPTER VI. 

 FASHIONS IN MARKET CATTLE. 



England and America, and other countries inhabited by 

 English-speaking people, lead in meat consumption, especially 

 in beef consumption. "The roast beef of old England" is well 

 known as characteristic of the Englishman's culinary tastes, 

 but Youatt records that in the time of Henry VIII. the Eng- 

 lish people were "strangers to beef and mutton." The con- 

 sumption of beef was confined principally to the summer months, 

 and it sold at a very low price, so that there was no encourage- 

 ment toward the production of beef cattle or beef. Instead, 

 cattle were valued for milking purposes and most of all for field 

 labor, and not until they had served a number of years as draft 

 animals were they fattened for the butcher. Six-year-old oxen 

 were sold from the plow to be fattened and then brought $50 

 to $75. There is record of an ox that was worked until fifteen 

 years old and then fattened fairly well. Those most certainly 

 were not days when men talked of baby beef. Size, usefulness 

 for field labor, and for dairy purposes were the qualities chiefly 

 sought. Prior to the close of the eighteenth century, there was 

 little exercise of care in the breeding of cattle, and feeding was 

 an unknown art. But conditions gradually became better; 

 England became more prosperous and wealthy, and there arose 

 a demand for more and better beef, for which higher prices were 

 paid. This impetus gave rise to the formation of the breeds 

 of beef cattle, all of which originated in England and Scotland, 

 unless we consider the Polled Shorthorn and Polled Hereford real 

 American breed creations, which, of course, they are not, being 

 the result of slight modifications of English breeds. 



When beef production was begun in earnest, more atten- 

 tion was given to size and quantity than to quality. Judging 

 from the records of early weights of cattle, and from drawings 

 made at that time, cattle were ponderous, rough, slow-maturing 

 beasts, and very patchy with great lumps of tallow. The ideals 

 of those days were exemplified by such famous animals as the 

 Durham Ox, weighing 3,024 pounds at five years of age, and 

 The White Heifer That Traveled, weighing 2,300 pounds. These 

 were early Shorthorns. Among early Hereford cattle, a bull, 



85 



