io6 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



Longhorns, and on the north by the backward state 

 of the country, the east country Dutch cattle — 

 the Shorthorns — were prevented for a time from 

 extending their territory. The state of the north 

 in the beginning of the eighteenth century may 

 be imagined from the fact that while there were 

 many considerable provincial towns in the south, 

 and two of them, Norwich and Bristol, had about 

 30,000 inhabitants, there were really only four 

 important towns in the north, viz. York with 

 10,000 inhabitants, Edinburgh with 30,000, Glas- 

 gow with 12,000, and Aberdeen with about 

 10,000. In those days a traveller might have 

 travelled from London to York by coach, but 

 beyond that he must have used pack-horses. 

 The means of communication may have been 

 good enough even for cattle of an improved 

 breed, but the deplorable lack of winter food, 

 especially in Scotland, was sufficient to prevent 

 the Shorthorns spreading northwards quickly. 

 Brigadier Mackintosh, a partaker in several 

 rebellions and in many continental fights, while 

 lying prisoner in Edinburgh Castle somewhere 

 between 17 19 and 1729, thus describes how cattle 

 were treated in Scotland : ^ " Nor can it be 

 otherwise in the supine ignorance our Farmers 

 are in, in the Method of choosing the right ages 

 of putting up to fatten their Beasts and the want 



' "An Essay on Ways and Means for Inclosing, Fallowing, 

 Planting, etc., Scotland," 1729, p. 131. 



