58 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



even in the same neighborhood. There was certainly much poor 

 and unprepossessing stock. Bradley, 1 writing in 1/26, divided 

 the cattle of England into three classes according to color, the 

 blacks, whites, and reds. The blacks he described as the strongest 

 for labor, though small, and found chiefly in the mountainous 

 districts. They were, in all probability, the ancestors of the 

 modern Welsh cattle, to which the description still applies. 

 The whites were larger and were common in some of the eastern 

 and southeastern counties. They were probably the basis upon 

 which was built the modern breed of Shorthorns, through admix- 

 ture with cattle imported from time to time from Holland. The 

 reds were still larger, gave richer milk, were bred in Somerset, 

 and were probably the ancestors of the modern Devons. 



The French writer, Paul Diffloth, 2 classifies the Shorthorns 

 as a variety of the Netherlandish race of cattle, of which the 

 Holsteins, the Flemish, the Danish, the Oldenburghs, and others 

 are continental varieties. The Devons he classifies as a variety 

 of the Irish race, of which the Bretons, the Jerseys, the Guern- 

 seys, the Ayrshires, and the Kerry s are other varieties. The 

 Herefords are, according to this writer, a variety of the Germanic 

 race, of which the Norman cattle of northern France, and several 

 German breeds, such as the Breitenburgs and the Mechlenburgs, 

 are other varieties. 



The evidence in favor of this classification is by no means 

 conclusive. There are certain striking similarities between the 

 cattle of the Netherlands and those of Durham, Yorkshire, and 

 Lincolnshire, where the Shorthorns originated. Moreover, the 

 evidence is fairly conclusive that the ancestors of the modern 

 Shorthorns had, from time to time, been improved by importations 

 of Dutch blood. Whether, as DifBoth suggests, the original cattle 

 of these regions were united in a previous geological age, and 



1 Quoted in Curtler, A Short History of English Agriculture, p. 167. 



2 Encyclopedic Agricole, " Zootechnic : Bovides" (Paris, 1904). 



