106 THE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



carried erect, the horns incline upwards, whilst the body has 

 become elongated, and the shoulders have somewhat retained 

 their uprightness ; the whole animal bearing a most stylish 

 attractive look. Animals of this type generally possess good 

 milking properties, an abundance of soft rich-coloured hair, 

 and a thin touch. By other breeders greater massiveness, with 

 sloping shoulders and a greater disposition to heavy flesh, have 

 been studied and attained. The adjudications in our recent 

 showyards have been made to animals of the greatest substance; 

 i.e., to those whose form has preserved most closely the type of 

 the earlier Shorthorns, without the roughness of their shoulders. 

 The system pursued by the most eminent breeders has of late 

 years been to couple animals of the same strain of blood. Several 

 breeders readily sold, before the recent depression, bull calves 

 for 500 guineas each ; and the enormous sum of 4500Z. has been 

 paid for a bull ; which, by a long and successful career at the 

 stud, was shown to have realised 7000Z. from fees paid to his 

 owner by other breeders who sent cows to him. Another old 

 established herd finds customers to hire the entire number of 

 bulls produced, at varying rentals for the year, from 100 to 

 300 guineas each. The most effective method of producing sale- 

 able animals still secDis that of somewhat close breeding, or, as it 

 is termed, in-and-in breeding, from a few families all near akin 

 to each other. So long as thick flesh, size, and constitution can 

 be maintained, there does not seem any valid objection to this 

 method. A common plan has been to use bulls of one strain 

 year after year, upon a herd originally of diflierent blood. It 

 cannot be said, however, that this practice has been altogether 

 successful. Attention to pedigree is, to this extent, found to 

 be as efficacious as attention to form without pedigree, that it 

 has produced animals which fetched the largest prices; still, 

 the warning must be given that breeding for fashion, and the 

 stimulating effects of high prices, have had a strong tendency 

 unduly to deter selection, and to prevent vigorous weeding out 

 of inferior specimens ; so that although restrictions in alliances 

 may have had the effect of perpetuating what is termed "pure" 

 blood, and of avoiding the deleterious effects of rash and 

 injudicious crossing, they certainly have been relied on too far. 

 Indeed, it may be accepted as proved that as soon as individual 



