3 io 



CATTLE 



cattle were small, naturally thin of flesh, and were either red, 

 brindled, or dun colored and always polled. Arthur Young in 

 1794, in a general survey of the agriculture of Suffolk, describes 

 the breed at some length. He stated that for two or three 

 months a whole herd would average five gallons of milk a day 

 per head, and single animals have produced eight gallons in a 

 day. From 1778 on, numerous advertisements of auction sales 

 of this dairy stock were published in the Norwich (Norfolk) 

 Mercury. In 1802 a herd of " twenty-one beautiful polled cows 

 and a bull " was advertised. 



2. Norfolk Red Polled, In Norfolk County early writers 

 referred to a type of cattle, blood-red in color, with a white or 

 mottled face, having horns, small of bone, " fattening as freely 

 and finishing as highly at three years old as cattle do generally 

 at four or five," says Marshall, who regarded the Norfolk Red 

 Polled as a miniature Hereford in appearance. These possessed 

 poor dairy qualities, so Jonas Reeve of Wigton and Richard 

 England of Binham began to improve and secure a type com- 

 bining the good qualities of the Suffolk as well as the Norfolk. 

 A Mr. George also took part in this improvement. They bred 

 to produce a solid red color, perhaps using the Devon, which 

 existed in the county, bred off the horns, no doubt with the help 

 of Suffolk bulls, and so developed a dual-purpose type which 

 attained considerable fame. In 1818 the name Norfolk Polled 

 began to come into use. 



The amalgamation of Suffolk and Norfolk Red Polled cattle 

 was the result of gradually developing the two breeds into a 

 common type. Each was improved with the view of securing 

 an easy-keeping, hornless, red-colored, dual-purpose animal. The 

 types of each county were shown for a time at the local fairs, but 

 they gradually came to be of the same general character. The year 

 1846, according to Mr. Euren, the secretary of the Red Polled 

 Cattle Association in England, may be taken as the date from 

 which the Norfolk and Suffolk varieties merged into each other, 

 so as to be spoken of as one and the same breed. Finally, in 

 1862, an international exposition was held at Battersea, when a 

 large exhibit was made in one class from both Norfolk and Suf- 

 folk. It was then that the improved form in each county was 



