FARMERS' REGISTER— COMPARATIVE VIEW OF DIFFERENT BREEDS. 203 



six; and if they are not well supported when young, 

 will require another year : that they have large 

 bones, and are said to be coarse-grained, and the 

 beef not so marbled as that of some other kinds ; 

 though some of them die veiy fine beef. " But he 

 adds/' that many have larger shoulders* than the 

 RoUright [long-horned] breed: that the best of this 

 breed, especially the heilers and cows, are fonned 

 for the butcher superior in shajjc to any other kind; 

 and that, of the four kinds of cattle put in competi- 

 tion with the RoUright, viz. the Devon, the Sussex, 

 the Herefjrd, and the Yorkshire, [short-horned,'] 

 he is of opinion that none, at an early age, equal 

 them lor slaughter, or will pay so much money lor 

 three years' consumption." t 



In confirmation of this, there is an opinion stated 

 m several of the agricultural surveys of dilferent 

 counties, "that for beauty and symmetry of parts 

 and disposition to fatten, the long-horned cattle are 

 not to be excelled by any of their contemporaries;" f 

 " that they come quickest to perfection; " § " are 

 preferable to short-horns, better feeders, and lay 

 most beef in the best joints; are more thrifty on 

 poor land, and are preferred at Smhhfield." || Yet 

 notwithstanding the decisive tone thus assumed, 

 the question of superiority may still be considered 

 as undecided : each have their advocates. Thus 

 the Hereford surveyor gives a decided preference 

 to the oxen bred in that county, although he ad- 

 mits, that the long-horned cows are ecj^ual to the 

 Herefbrdshire.lT The Somersetshire graziers will 

 not allow that the north-country oxen possess any 

 merit, comparatively with the Devon, either for 

 labor or slaughter; but the surveyor himself, while 

 maintaining their superiority in the yoke, is cancUd 

 enough to admit, " that they have many rivals in 

 the Galloway, Leicester, Hereford, Glamorgan, 

 and other cattle."** The late Mr. Davis, of Long- 

 leat, an eminent agriculturist, although allowing 

 that the comparative merits of the Devon and long- 

 horned breeds are warmly contested in Wiltshire, 

 yet. gives it as his opinion, " that whatever may 

 be the comparative merits of the two kinds of cows 

 for the dairy, there is not a doubt but the Devon- 

 shire kind are the most proper ibr fatting; and, as 

 to the oxen bred from the two kinds, it would be 

 injustice to the Devonshire oxen even to make a 

 comparison between them, "ft Further trials of 

 their respective qualities must be accurately made 

 and faithfully recorded, before an undisputed pre- 

 ference can be awarded to either; for it cannot be 

 concealed that local prejudice is often opposed to 

 fact. The long-horns appear best adapted for 

 grazing; being well protected by thick hides and 

 long hair, and seemingly intended by nature for 

 the range of pasture land. The short-horns, on 



* This, it should be observed, is a defect; for al- 

 though the shoulders cannot be deemed offal, yet are 

 they, comparatively, loss, as the tlesh is of less value 

 than that on the rump, loins, and chine: wherefore, the 

 most perfectly formed cattle are those that are the 

 longest, and have the smallest shoulders in proportion 

 to their size. 



t Parkinson's Treatise on Live Stock, Vol. I. ch. 1. 

 sect. 15. 



t Leicester Report, p. 218. |i Rutland ditto, p. 121. 



§ Lincoln Report, pp. 337, 339, .341, 2d edition. 



r Hereford ditto, p. 118. 



♦♦Somerset ditto, pp. 242, 243, 3d edition. 



tt Wilts ditto, pp. 204, 205, 2d ditto. 



the contrary, have thin hides and short hair, and 

 being of a more tender constitution than the for- 

 mer, and arriving to greater weight, seem better 

 calculated for the s\ stem of stall-leeding; while the 

 Devons have the advantage as working oxen. 



The next in size to the short-horned, are the 

 Hereford; the oxen of which breed commonly at- 

 tain the weight of 70 to 100 stone, of fourteen 

 pounds, and trequenlly anive at much greater size. 

 They are considered by a competent judge, * when 

 compared with other fashionable breeds, "as rather 

 larger in the bone, and somewhat shorter in the 

 carcass; rising a little higher in the chine, towards 

 the shoulders, but generally broad, which renders 

 the chine thick and heavy. Their bucks are round, 

 wide from one to the other, and well covered with 

 fat; their rump is well foi'med, and the thigh rath- 

 er heavier than some delicate breeds. Their 

 shoulders are mostly large, in consequence of which 

 they have more coarse boiling beef than they ought, 

 and, notwithstanding they have a great propensity 

 to fatten and die well filled with fat, it is often irreg- 

 ularly placed in patches. " This defect is, Iiovv- 

 ever," probably owing to their having been work- 

 ed; for although oxen that have been for several 

 years at the yoke, will often become fat, it has been 

 remarked that they are seldom so equally propor- 

 tioned in every part with fat and lean as unworked 

 steers, nor is the meat so juicy, and the brisket and 

 lower parts are generally tough. When slaugh- 

 tered at a proper age, the Herefords are heavily 

 fleshed, the meat is fine in the grain and regularly 

 marbled, with a better proportion of fat and lean 

 than most other cattle, and they deservedly hold 

 a high place in the estimation of the butchers. A 

 writer of considerable experience on the subject, 

 who has lately published a very interesting me- 

 moir of the short-horned breed, gives the prefer- 

 ence to the improved short-horns, which he con- 

 siders equal, at three years old, to Hereford cattle 

 at tour jears old; and the cows as more profitable 

 for the dairy. For breeders, he therefore decidedly 

 recommends the short-horns; but he admits that 

 the Herefords may be purchased with equal profit 

 by graziers, whose only view is to tiitten them for 

 the market, because they will not — in a lean state 

 at four years old — bear an increased price propor- 

 tioned to the additional time required to render one 

 of them equal to a short-horn of three years, t 



An interesting experiment made at the Earl of 

 Egremont's farm at Petworth, in Sussex, might, 

 if it stood alone, be considered as, in a great mea- 

 sure, decisive of the relative value of this breed, as 

 fatting cattle, to those of Devon and Sussex. — 

 Eight beasts of the three breeds, taken indiscrim- 

 inately from the stock, were put u]i to fatten on a 

 mixture of barley-meal and flax-seed. For the 

 first seven weeks they had each three gallons ever)'- 

 day, of which one-fourth was flax-seed; and for the 

 remainder of the time they had three gallons, of 

 which one-third was flax-seed, groimd together 

 and mixed up with some wheat-chatl', both to fa- 

 cilitate digestion, and jirevent it from sticking in 

 their throats. Besides this, they had each thirteen 

 pounds of hay weighed to them three times each 



* Mr. Richard Parkinson, Treatise on Live Stock, 

 Vol. L ch. 1, sect. 16. 



t See an Essay entitled "Improved Short horns, and 

 their pretensions stated," by the Rev. Henry Berry, of 

 Worcestershire, 1830. 



