BAKEWELL 117 



expositor of his ideas : ' ' The argument held out 

 in its (in-breeding's) favour is, that there can 

 be only one best breed ; and if this be crossed, 

 it must necessarily be with an inferior breed ; 

 the necessary consequence of which must be an 

 adulteration, not an improvement."^ 



In any case, Bakewell adopted the system 

 of in-breeding, and, looking back, we can now 

 see how it was possible for him to have done 

 what he did. He came upon the scene during 

 the great agricultural transition and near the 

 beginning of the rise in British industry and 

 commerce. Formerly the cow had been valued 

 for her milk, the bullock for its labour, the 

 sheep for its wool, and the horse for its strength 

 and weight in battle. Now the horse is to 

 split into two kinds, one valued for its strength, 

 the other for its speed, and the former is to 

 drive the bullock from the plough to the feeding 

 stall. At the same time, the new agricultural 

 discoveries and the new crops are to allow the 

 bullock to be fattened off at an age at which, 

 in former days, he would have been beginning 

 his career in the plough and the waggon. Now 

 it is not a bullock that will grow for three or 

 four years and remain active and lean for a 

 similar period that is wanted, but one that will 

 fatten quickly and easily at the end of his period 

 of growth. Bakewell saw that a new kind of 



1 " The Complete Farmer," 4th ed., under article " Cattle." 



