DIFFERENT BREEDS OF OXEN. 109 



acquire fat at an early age and rapidly, a quality which has been 

 found to be hereditary. 



It appears, in fact, to have been Bakewell's opinion that all 

 depends upon the breed and the beauty and utility of the form, 

 the quality of the flesh and the propensity to fatten on the part 

 fOf the offspring being the natural consequence of similar qualities 

 in the parents. Mr. Bakewell's plan was to unite the superior 

 branches of the same breed. The rapidity of the improvement 

 which he effected was only equalled by its extent. His stock 

 was unsurpassed for roundness of form, smallness of bone, and 

 aptitude to acquire external fat ; but at the same time their 

 milk-producing qualities were considerably lessened. Other 

 breeders also aided in improving the longhorned oxen. The 

 result was that in the districts in which the experiments were 

 tried a breed of cattle, equalled by few and excelled by none but 

 the Herefords, was produced. In fact, the whole breed of the 

 longhorns was improved. The cattle of Lancashire, Derbyshire, 

 and Staff'ordshire became, and still are, an improved race, and 

 they got rid of a portion of their coarse bone. They put on flesh 

 and fat in the more suitable situations, they became mature at a 

 somewhat earlier age, and the dairy cattle to some extent 

 acquired a tendency to convert their food into milk while milk 

 was wanted, and after that to use the same nourishment for the 

 accumulation of flesh and fat. The Irish breeders owe every- 

 thing to the new Leicester cattle, and indeed a new stock has 

 arisen since the improved longhorns were grafted on the native 

 Irish stock. 



The principle on which Mr. Bakewell seemed to act in breed- 

 ing so closely in-and-in was a novel, bold, and successful one. 

 He had a large stock on which to work, and no one knew what 

 were his occasional deviations from this rule, nor how he skilfully 

 interposed remoter affinities when he saw or apprehended danger. 

 When the masters of that day had disappeared, the character 

 of this breed began to deteriorate slowly, and, in fact, so refined 

 were many of them that the propagation of the variety was not 

 always certain. Moreover, the improved shorthorns began to 

 occupy the banks of the Tees, they presented greater bulk, equal 

 aptitude to fatten, and they arrived at maturity at an earlier age. 



The county of Westmoreland had been the native land of the 

 longhorns ; but even in that county the shorthorns made good 



