ai6 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



and, afterwards, his sheep were generally called ' New Leicesters ', 

 and sometimes the ' Dishley breed '. There was much pre- 

 judice among farmers against the new breed ; in the Midlands 

 most of the farmers would have nothing to do with them, and 

 ' their grounds were stocked with creatures that would disgrace 

 the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet in April, 1786, year- 

 ling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s. while those of 

 the old were 165-. 



The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous 

 old longhorn breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, 

 which had already been considerably improved by Webster 

 of Canley in Warwickshire, and others, especially in Lancashire 

 and the north. The kind of cattle esteemed hitherto had been 

 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse, flat-sided kind, and 

 often lyery or black-fleshed.' 1 He founded his herd upon two 

 heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland, and from 

 these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was 

 a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who 

 came to be celebrated in agricultural history as ' Old Comely ', 

 for she was slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his 

 cattle so that they produced an enormous amount of fat, as 

 hitherto there had been a difficulty in producing animals to 

 fatten readily ; but this he pushed to too great an extreme, so 

 that there has been a reaction. The following is a description 

 of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny' out of a Canley cow : 

 ' His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and clean ; his 

 chest extraordinarily deep ; his brisket bearing down to his 

 knees ; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably 

 wide at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs 

 rather full and remarkably let down. The carcase through- 

 out, chine excepted, large, roomy, deep, and well spread.' 2 

 The new longhorn, however good for the grazier, was not 

 a good milker. Bakewell was a great believer in straw as 



1 Culley on Live Stock (1807), p. 56. 



2 Marshall, Rural Economy of the Midland Counties, i. 273. 



