MODERN BREEDERS. 



69 



(65.) Modern Breeders It is only within a very 



leoent period, that the mode of improving live-stock by 

 skilful breeding, has been properly attended to. The 

 perfection of breeding formerly, was to have cows in 

 calf once a-year, and rear calves on as little milk as 

 possible ; and, even yet, there are only a scattered 

 few who devote to it the attention it requires. The 

 first, in modern times, who arrived at any thing like 

 eminence in this department, was Joseph Allom, of 

 Clifton, who raised himself by dint of industr)', from a 

 pioiighbo}^ and for a long time contrived to keep his 

 methods secret, being supposed by many to have 

 bought his ewes in Lincolnshire, at the very time he 

 was constantly bringing them from the Melton quarter 

 of Leicestershire. Though possessing talent, he does 

 not appear to have had education enough to avail him- 



Ielf of it, and accordingly never gained the extensive 

 |)pularity which fell to the lot of his successors. 

 I As the introducers of new and important yjlans of 

 lanagement in agriculture, are always rewarded by 

 arge profits, and the gratitude of their countrymen, so 

 none were ever more generously dealt with in either 

 respect, than Mr Robert Bakewell, of Dishley, and Mr 

 Ellman, of Glynde. The former, who may be said to 

 have created a variety, considered that a tendency to 

 acquire fat was the first quality to be looked to in an 

 animal destined for the food of man ; and on this, with 

 him a fundamental principle, was based the whole of 



the Society for the DifFusion of Useful Knowledge, at page 123 of that 

 book, laments the want of an English translation of Columella. An 



! excellent quarto translation of his twelve books on Husbandry, and one 



I on Trees, was published at London, in 1743. 



