CATTLE HUSBANDRY. 23 



parks and domains of the nobility. Just one hundred years 

 antecedent to the Mayflower's advent to the inhospitable shores 

 of New England, Henry VnL,king of old England, sent an army 

 into France and took many towns and castles ; and no less than 

 14,000 head of neat cattle, with sheep and swine, were plundered 

 from the French and brought into the south part of England, 

 along the coast of the English Channel. 



Like excursions were made into Scotland by the same king 

 and into Ireland, -and multitudes of cattle from each country 

 were brought into England and disposed of to the owners of the 

 land and crossed with the English cattle then existing. So that 

 at the time New England was settled, and during the emigration 

 for years after from the various parts of Old England, there were 

 in the latter country races of cattle combining the best qualities 

 of all known animals, each county or district possessing a kind 

 peculiar to it, and the people going from any particular county 

 took with them the cattle belonging to it. Li the north-west of 

 England the longhorns were most prominent, and the emigrants 

 from the counties of Westmoreland, Cumberland and Lancas- 

 ter brought over stock of that description. This herd of cat- 

 tle were distinguished by a great length of horns, which fre- 

 quently projected nearly horizontal on either side, and some- 

 times hung down so that the animal could hardly reach the 

 grass with its mouth, or met under the jaw so as to lock the 

 lower jaw. It was this breed upon which Robert Bakewell, the 

 great improver of long-woolled sheep, exercised his art and 

 brought them to such perfection for the grazier and butcher. 



Early in the present century a few of the improved breed were 

 imported into Kentucky, but they were not received with much 

 favor, and the Shorthorns have driven them out. The middle- 

 horned cattle, including the Devons and Herefords, were favor- 

 ites of the early settlers, and as the people from the districts in 

 which these cattle were most ^^numerous came in greater num- 

 bers to our shores than from any other region of the mother 

 country, they were brought in large numbers. The Devons 

 especially were imported largely into Massachusetts and Con- 

 necticut, but the colonists of the latter State gave them the most 

 decided preference over all others, and to this day there are 

 more pure Devons in that State than in any of the United States ; 

 and at the recent New England fair held at Manchester, New 



