Chapter XXXII. 



RED-POLLED CATTLE. 



The Red-Polls, while tracing their history well back into the last 

 century, have only recently attracted any considerable attention. Their 

 origin is somewhat clouded in obscurity. Suffolk county, England, had 

 from very early times a breed of polled cattle, and it is more than prob- 

 able that this Suffolk breed had much to do with moulding the type of, 

 and dehorning the Norfolk breed, which was the first to attract attention 

 from outside parties. From their general resemblance to the Devons 

 (excepting horns) we would look for a common ancestry somewhere in 

 the early history of the breeds. Marshall, in his Rural Economy of Nor- 

 folk, states that the breed of Norfolk, about 1780, was a "Herefordshire 

 breed in miniature," and that the color was "blood-red, with a white or 

 mottled face." He further traces the changes of the breed, by crosses 

 with Suffolk bulls, stating in substance that size was increased and form 

 improved. To trace the origin further, it would be necessary to go back 

 of the old polled Suffolk breed, and bring up the question as to how the 

 various breeds of hornless cattle were established in their peculiar fea- 

 ture. We need only say in this connection that polled animals were found 

 in most portions of the British Islands from time immemorial. Accord- 

 ing to Youatt, there seem to have been two distinct breeds of aboriginal 

 cattle occupying the central and northern portions of the British Island ; 

 one of these had medium horns, while the other had none; from the first 

 were probably produced the Devon, Hereford, Sussex and West High- 

 land cattle, while as a continuation of the second, we have now the Gal- 

 loways, Angus and Suffolk and Norfolk Reds the latter now collectively 

 called Red-Polls. 



Improvement of the breed has been steadily carried forward the 

 Suffolks dehorning, while the Norfolks were firmly fixing the blood-red 

 color mentioned by Marshall and both breeds came gradually nearer 

 a common standard, until, abouv the middle of the present century, 

 breeders from both counties began to meet in honest competition, and 

 select their breeding animals with reference to perpetuating the red color 

 and the hornless trait. In 1874, Mr. H. F. Euren, of Norwich, succeeded 

 in establishing the English Red-Polled Herd Book, and through the stim- 

 ulus thus applied, these cattle have since been making rapid strides to- 

 ward perfection. In 1883, the American Red-Polled Cattle Society 



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