180 STOCKBREEDER'S ART AND ROBERT BAKEWELL 



land. Scotland had its West Highlanders ; its Ayrshires, second 

 to none as milkers ; its Galloways and its Anguses, originally 

 middle-horned but now becoming polled, which were driven south- 

 wards to the October and November fairs of Norfolk and Suffolk 

 to be fattened for the London markets. On these imported Gallo- 

 ways were founded the Norfolk breed of polled cattle, and the 

 Suffolk Duns once famous all over England for their milking 

 qualities. The North-west of England and the Midlands were 

 occupied by the Long-horns. Of these the most celebrated were 

 the Lancashires, or Cravens, so called from their home in the 

 corner of the West Riding of Yorkshire which borders on Lancashire 

 and Westmoreland. To this breed some attention had, as is noticed 

 in the Legacie, been paid in the seventeenth century. To the same 

 stock belonged the brindled or grizzled Staffordshires, valued, like 

 the Cravens, for the dairy and for meat. The North of Lincoln- 

 shire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, and Durham were famous for 

 the enormous size of their short-horned cattle, which were extra- 

 ordinary milkers. The Holderness breed, as it was called before 

 its establishment on the banks of the Tees, were " more like an 

 ill-made black horse than an ox or cow." * The cattle were badly 

 shaped, long-bodied, bulky in the coarser points, small in the prime 

 parts. But they satisfied the taste of the eighteenth century 

 grazier, because their gigantic frames offered plenty of bone on 

 which to lay flesh. They were undoubtedly a breed of foreign 

 origin. Tradition relates that, towards the end of the seventeenth 

 century, a bull and some cows were introduced into the Holderness 

 district from the Low Countries. But the introduction must have 

 been of an earlier date. Lawson in his New Orchard (1618) says : 

 " The goodnesse of the soile in Howie, or Hollow-, derness in York- 

 shire is well knowne to all that know the River Humber and the 

 huge bulkes of their Cattell there." It is probably to this intro- 

 duction of foreign blood that Child alludes in his Letter in Hartlib's 

 Legacie (1651), when he says that little attention was paid to 

 breeding except in the north-western and north-eastern counties. 

 To the same stock belonged the " long-legged short-horn'd Cow of 

 the Dutch breed," which Mortimer (1707) selected as the best 

 breed for milking. Probably, also, the famous " Lincolnshire Ox " 

 was one of these Holderness Dutch-crossed animals. This beast 

 was exhibited, as the Advertisement sets out, " with great satisfac- 

 1 Culley's Observations on Live Stock (1786), p. 30. 



