THE BEST BREEDS OF DAIRY CATTLE. 21 



increase of wealth among the mining and manufacturing popu- 

 lations of these islands, that the flesh of cattle became so general 

 and popular an article of food, and that, consequently, cows 

 were endowed with potential profit other than that of milk. 

 And so it came to pass that milk relatively went down in the 

 estimation of breeders, and beef went up. 



But a turn of the tide set in when the great trade in American 

 beef was developed with startling suddenness in this country, 

 and it was seen to have been a mistake to have let the Short- 

 horns fall so far away from milk. The mistake was brought 

 home somewhat unpleasantly to the breeders, when dairy 

 farmers wanted pedigree bulls from herds whose cows were 

 known to be good milkers, and looked askance at those that 

 were not. And so it is that nowadays milking properties are 

 being carefully cultivated in all breeds of cows that have any 

 serious claim to be considered dairy cattle at all. 



This is, of course, as it should always have been : as it 

 indeed was, in the old days of the Shorthorns. And as this 

 most famous and most valuable of all breeds is well known to 

 be susceptible of a high lacteal development, there can be no 

 doubt that the property will be developed and improved as 

 perhaps it has not aforetime been. 



Good, roomy Shorthorns, well bred, well raised, well trained, 

 will yield 15 or 16 quarts at a meal, in not a few instances, 

 though of course this cannot be sustained through very many 

 weeks. Cows of this breed are reputed to have yielded upwards 

 of 1,000 gallons of milk, and there exists a record of one that 

 gave 12,870 Ibs., or about 1,255 gallons, in one year. It is 

 probable, however, that the average yield of Shorthorn cows is 

 less than 500 gallons per annum, especially if we reckon in the 

 pedigree cows of some of the aristocratic herds. 



The old Longhorns, which are now kept in a few places only, 

 for antiquarian reasons chiefly, were general in the Midland 

 counties up to about the beginning of the second quarter of the 

 current century, but they have been most thoroughly " rooted 

 out" by the Shorthorns, which now prevail in all the old Long- 

 horn haunts. And yet these Longhorns had great merits in some 



