4 .NOTES ON FASHION. 



with the United States as the buyers from that country, 

 where notions incline to the intense, fixed on a strictly 

 limited number of families or branches of families, com- 

 prising the two referred to above and a few others, as being 

 those of which the members were considered worthy of 

 being received into their herds. 



The natural result has been that the fashionableness 

 of such families has been intensified and that home 

 breeders, in order to accommodate their customers, have 

 retained or procured, as opportunity occurred, members of 

 such selected families. 



As breeders have only accommodation for a certain 

 number of cattle on their farms, this has led to the gradual 

 disappearance from many herds of members of what were 

 known as leading families at the date of the publication 

 to which reference has been made. 



It will be found, as the result of these operations, that 

 at the present time in many of the leading herds a large 

 portion of the cattle are members of the families which 

 have thus become most fashionable, and that the percent- 

 age of the entries in the Herd Book of members of such 

 families, as compared with those of members of other 

 families, has very much increased.* 



It ought however to be mentioned that there are some 

 old-established and well-known herds which apparently 

 have not been ruffled by this possibly passing breeze, and 

 where no displacement appears to have been effected of 

 families which have been bred there from early days and it 

 is possible that in the future evolution of fashion they may 

 be rewarded for such placidity. 



There can be no doubt that fashion in cattle, as in 

 other things, when it tends to become a craze, is apt to be 



* See Appendix. 



