556 ^ANUAL OF MODERiS FARRIERY. 



of cattle ; and these also prevent too great an accumulation 

 of heated air. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



THE VARIOUS BREEDS OF HORNED CATTLE. 



THE SHORT-HORNED, OR HOLSTEIN BREED. 



It is from this breed that we derived the best of our English 

 cattle, which now, in most parts of the kingdom, far exceed 

 the parent stock. They differ much from all the older Bri- 

 tish cattle in the shortness of their horns. They are wider 

 and deeper in their form, and feed to a much greater weiglit 

 than most other breeds ; they yield a large quantity of tal- 

 low, and their hides are greatly finer in texture, thinner, 

 more compact in fibre, and with a thin coating of hair. 



It is not the province of a work of this kind to enter 

 into an elaborate detail of all the methods pursued by 

 breeders for improving their stock, which would exceed the 

 limits of a treatise of this kind ; but we shall quote the. 

 words of Mr. Beilby, who, in speaking of the improved Hol- 

 stein breed, says, "We shall, however, give the general prin- 

 ciples which have been laid down, and steadily adhered to, 

 in the improvements of several breeds of cattle, and which 

 have been so successfully brought into practice. The first, 

 and most obvious, is beauty of form, a principle which has 

 been, in common, applied to every species of domestic cattle, 

 and, with great seeming propriety, was supposed to form the 

 basis of every kind of improvement, under an idea that 



