No. 11. 



A Bull of the improved Teeswater breed. 



345 



A BULL 



Of the improved Teeswater breed, the property of the Rev. Henry Berry. 



From the earliest periods as to which we have any account of the different breeds of 

 cattle, the counties of Durham and York have been celebrated for their Short-horns; but 

 principally, in the first instance, on account of their reputation as extraordinary milkers. 

 To recite their recorded feats at the pail, would be to invite incredulity, but it may be 

 asserted on the best evidence, that taken as a breed, they have never, in this particular, 

 been equalled. But the cattle so distinguished, were very different from the improved 

 Teeswater race; for they were generally of large size, thin skinned, sleek-haired, bad 

 handlers, rather delicate in constitution, coarse in the offal, and strikingly defective in the 

 substance of girth in the fore-quarters. As milkers, they were most excellent, but when 

 put to fatten, as the foregoing description will indicate, were found slow feeders, producing 

 an inferior quality of meat, not marbled or mixed as to fat and lean; and in some cases, 

 the latter was found of a particularly dark hue. A period of about an hundred years has 

 elapsed, since the Short-horns on the banks of the river Tees — hence called the Teeswa- 

 ter breed — had assumed a very different character from that contained in the foregoing de- 

 scription: in colour, they resembled the improved Short-horns, being occasionally red, 

 red and white, and roan, although the last named colour was not so prevalent as now: 

 they possessed a fine mellow skin and flesh, good hair and light offal, particularly wide 

 carcasses, and fore-quarters of extraordinary depth and capacity. Perhaps no closer 

 modern resemblance can be found to the above description of the improved Teeswater 

 breed, than the Rev. Mr. Berry's bull presents, the portrait of which accompanies this 

 account: his dam was purchased by Mr. Berry, on account of the very few crosses that 

 had intervened between her and some of the best of the Teeswater cattle, to which he 

 was desirous to go back, on account of the extent to which breeding in and in, had been 

 carried. When slaughtered, the proof of this improved breed is excellent, and many in- 

 stances are recorded of the wonderful weight of their inside fat. The remarkable differ- 

 ence which existed between the Teeswater and the old unimproved breed of Short-horns, 

 may, with propriety, be ascribed to a spirit of improvement which had for some time 

 manifested itself amongst the breeders on the banks of the Tees, but whose laudable 

 efforts were, however, well seconded by the very superior land in the vicinity of that 

 river; and no reasonable doubts can be entertained, that they proceeded on a judicious 

 system of crossing with other breeds; because it was impossible to raise such stock as 

 the Teeswater, from the pure Short-horn breed. 



For an admirable portrait of the improved Yorkshire Dairy cow, we would refer our 

 readers to the Cabinet, vol. 6, page 2C9. 



