BAKEWELL 121 



breeding which Bakewell established must be a 

 wrong one, since the breed which he did so much 

 to improve, and which at one time overran a 

 great part of England and almost the whole of 

 Ireland was well-nigh extinct within a century 

 of the time when Bakewell was in his zenith. 

 But it must be remembered that another type 

 of animal has been in demand since Bakewell's 

 day. The Longhorns were graziers' cattle — slow 

 to mature as we now understand them, and 

 capable of withstanding the severity of winter 

 in the open air. The great increase of tillage 

 farming in the east of England and of dairy 

 farming in the neighbourhood of large cities 

 demanded a bullock that would turn turnips and 

 straw quickly into beef in a stall or covered shed 

 and a cow that also in the house would produce 

 a large quantity of milk and afterwards fatten 

 quickly. If only for its horns alone, the Long- 

 horn was not the animal to meet this demand. 



But the greatest argument for the Bakewellian 

 system is that the breeds that superseded the 

 Longhorn were originated, and have been main- 

 tained, in the same manner. Besides, to say 

 nothing of his horses, the blood of Bakewell's 

 Leicester sheep, which were equally or more 

 in-bred than his cattle, now flows in the veins of 

 every " longwooled " sheep that trots, and is still 

 alive in almost absolute purity in two breeds 

 — the Leicesters and the Border Leicesters. 



