io 4 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



Thus these three kinds of cattle, the Here- 

 fords, the Longhorns, and the Shorthorns, the 

 first two largely of Dutch descent, the last almost 

 entirely so, were established in England in the 

 first half of the eighteenth century. But the 

 territories they occupied were too small for 

 them. The Longhorns were the first to make 

 this discovery, and, casting envious eyes on the 

 fertile country to the south, they sent out wave 

 after wave of their surplus population, until by 

 the end of the eighteenth century they and their 

 progeny by English cattle possessed it all as far 

 south as the Sussex downs, leaving the com- 

 paratively less fertile outside rim to such as the 

 Herefords, the Devons and Somersets, the 

 Sussex, the SufFolks, and the Norfolks. 1 To 

 the east they were balked by the Pennine Range 

 and the Shorthorns ; to the north the prospect 

 was less encouraging, but across the Irish Channel 

 they found a promising outlet. 



Ireland was ripe for the importation of superior 

 bovines. The seventeenth century had been a 

 century of t ' plantations " Elizabeth's, James's, 

 and Cromwell's. Much of the land had become 

 the property of the English and Scots. The 

 cattle of the country were of the same race 

 as the small black Celtic cattle of Scotland and 



1 The Dutch cattle that came to Kent and perhaps Essex 

 made no great headway. The Kent cattle probably handed on 

 their size to the Sussex. 



