n6 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



parts of the country, and that the cows he 

 bought from Mr. Webster of Canley were put 

 to a bull from Westmoreland. From the time, 

 however, when he obtained that Westmoreland 

 bull, which was somewhere about 1760, Bake- 

 well continued to put his own stock to his own, 

 regardless of their relationship and of the custom 

 and sentiment of the country. It must also be 

 remembered that he had probably tried this 

 system with sheep before adopting it with cattle. 



Several reasons might be imagined for Bake- 

 well having adopted the system of in-breeding. 

 He was a great traveller, a close observer, and 

 an unparalleled judge. He must have seen 

 how animals came truer to their kind when bred 

 pure, and how irregular were the progeny of 

 cross-breds ; and he may have argued that the 

 mating of close relations was the very essence 

 of pure breeding. Or he may have been a 

 pre- Darwinian Darwinist, and argued that an 

 accumulation of good qualities could only be 

 secured by their continued infusion. Or, still 

 more likely, failing to find a better bull than 

 Twopenny the produce of the Westmoreland 

 bull and a Canley cow and fearing to use a 

 worse one, he may have been compelled, senti- 

 ment or no sentiment, to stick to his own. 

 This view is supported by Marshall, who was 

 deeper in Bakewell's confidence than any other 

 writer, and who was, to some extent, the 



