DUAL PURPOSE CATTLE 



The Inheritance of Dual 

 Purpose Cattle 



Before there is a consideration of the modern uses of cattle 

 a brief statement of old-time practice may not be out of place. 



James E. Thorold Rogers, some time M. P., also Professor of 

 Political Economy in the University of Oxford, in 1866 began publi- 

 cation of "The History of Agriculture and Prices in England," facts 

 and figures collected from records extending from A. D. 1258-9 to 

 1702-3. In 1884, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages: The History 

 of English Labor," admirably presented these researches for the in- 

 struction of the general public. His lectures on England's Economic 

 History, as delivered at Oxford, yet more fully illustrated what it is 

 desirable to be known of the Rise and Progress of more than one 

 branch of Farm Economics. 



When Rome sought and ultimately won a footing in England 

 they found there a great number of cattle. Probably they were being 

 used in the cultivation of land as was yet the practice when the 19th 

 century opened. It is on record that Seneca, the philosopher, when 

 he was Nero's helper in the government of the Roman Empire, en- 

 ticed the Eceni and others of the Brythonic folk tilling the East 

 Coast lands, to "borrow of him vast sums upon fair promises of easie 

 loan, and for repayment to take their own time, then on a sudden 

 compelling them to pay all at once with great extortion." This may 

 be taken as an illustration of the hazards which were the portion of 

 the worker on the land while under the domination of Rome. When 

 the Angeln folk took possession of the lands the natives who survived 

 were enslaved, and became "landless men." The new settlers, having 

 somewhat superior cattle, would use them as producers of milk, but- 

 iter, and cheese, as well as in the ploughing of their land. In their 

 turn, the English lords, when degraded by their Norman conquerors, 

 who henceforth ruled the peasantry, increased the number of "land- 

 less." Thorold Rogers says farm and manor accounts are numerous 

 from "about the last ten or twelve years of the reign of Henry III," 

 and the handwriting tells the expert the date "within a few years, 

 whether its origin be Lancashire, Kent, Warwichshire, Norfolk, or 

 Northumberland. . . . No other country possesses such a wealth 

 of public records." 



We thus know that the serf had the use of some 12 acres of arable 

 land with live stock thereon, and as a part of his rent had to till at 

 least half an acre of his lord's land, while the cottagers were for the 

 greater part of the year free laborers. In the course of itime these 

 landless folk acquired right of possession to the use of the lands they 

 cultivated, and to the keeping of their cattle on the unenclosed lands 

 which in the course of years were termed common lands. Mr. 

 Rogers says: 



