CAITLE. Ill 



and the legs short. For constitutional powers, the beast should have his 

 ribs extended well toward the thigh-bones or hips, so as to leave as 

 little unprotected space as possible. There must be no angular or 

 abrupt points; all must be round, and broad, and parallel. Any de- 

 pression in the lean animal, will give a deficient deposit of flesli and 

 fat at that point, when sold to the butcher, and thus deteriorate its 

 vahie ; and hence the animal must be round and full. But either fancy, 

 or accident, or skill — we will not pretend to say which — has associated 

 symmetry with quality and conformation, as a point of great importance 

 in animals calculatecl for fattening ; and there is no doubt that, to a 

 certain extent, this is so. The beast must be a system of mathematical 

 lines. To the advocate of symmetry the setting on of a tail will be a 

 condemning fault; indeed, the ridge of the back, like a straight line, 

 with the outline of the belly exactly parallel, viewed from the side, and 

 a depth and squareness when viewed from behind, which remind us of 

 a geometrical cube rather than a vital economy, may be said to be the 

 indications of excellence in a fat ox. These qualities are inherent in 

 some breeds ; there may be cases and instances in all the superior breeds, 

 and in most there may be failures. 



By far the first in the list for feeding excellence are — 



The Short-Horn or Durham Breed. — The origin of the breed is involved in 

 great obscurity. They are supposed by some to be traced into Holder- 

 ness; and to have been imported from Holstein, according to others; 

 from continental Europe they certainly seem to have come; and, being 

 successively improved by a variety of breeders, they have ended in that 

 distinct race of animals, extraordinary beyond all others for their as- 

 tonishing propensities to feed. Others, again, refer their origin to a 

 native race of cattle called the Teeswater, because they have from 

 time immemorial inhabited the valley which the Tees has formed by 

 its washings down of the mountain limestone rocks, in which it has its 

 origin ; these, it is said, being crossed by the Holderness importations, 

 gradually became a new race. 



The late Mr. Bates traces back the short-horns to a breed in the 

 possession of the Aslabies of Studley, and the Rev. H. Berry to an im- 

 provement in the East Riding of Yorkshire, by the importation of a 

 breed from Holland by Sir W.St. Quintin of Scampston. Of these early 

 ages of the short-horns, however, it is hardly necessary to say more 

 than this — that a breed from time immemorial inhabited the valley of 

 the Tees, and, trained and bred to feed, for a vast succession of genera- 

 tions, on its fertile deposits, acquired the habits of speedy fat-forming; 

 for in these valleys, where hay alone will feed the largest ox, the pro- 

 duction of fat would be so far an object that breeders would always 

 select the best and easiest feeding animals; and thus the character of 

 the district, through a number of centuries, might easily lay the ground- 

 work of that improvement which the Wilbanks, the Greys, the Booths, 

 the Coates, and, above all, the Collings, have efiected. 



We will give the latest description of the qualities of the modern 

 short-horn from the most recent authority, Mr. Dickson. After referring 

 to the general symmetry of the frame and its delicate color, either deep- 

 red cream-colored, white, or delicate roan — the latter the most fashion- 



