120 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Dutch breed was especially established in the district of 

 Holderness, on the north side of the estuary of the Humber, 

 whence it extended northward through the plains of York- 

 shire ; and the cattle of Holderness still retain the distinct 

 traces of their Dutch origin, and were long regarded as the 

 finest dairy-cows of England, Further to the north, in the 

 fertile district of the Tees, importations likewise took place 

 of the cattle of the opposite countries ; sometimes from Hol- 

 land, and sometimes by the way of Planiburg from Holstcin. 

 Sir William St. Quinton, of Scampston, is said to have pro- 

 cured bulls and cows from Holland, for the purpose of breed- 

 ing, previous to the middle of the last century ; and at a later 

 period, Mr. Michael Dobinson, in the county of Durham, 

 visited Holland for the purpose of selecting bulls of the Dutch 

 breed. Other persons had resorted for their breeding cattle 

 to HoJstein, whence the finest of the Dutch breed have themselves 

 been derived." And a few lines farther on, — "the breed 

 formed by the mixture became familiarly known [in England] 

 as the Dutch or Holstein breed." 



From this the "herd-book" infers that Dutch cattle and 

 the cattle of Holstein are of the same quality or intrinsic 

 value, and that the former are derived from the latter. 



Let us examine this more closely. 



The Eno:lish " Shorthorns " owe their origin to cattle im- 

 ported from Holland, but, besides these Dutch cattle, there 

 have also been cattle imported (into England) from Holstein 

 and Jutland. This appears from what is quoted in the " herd- 

 book," from Low. The following is translated from Royer's * 

 French version of Low's w^ork : "In comparing these varie- 

 ties of cattle to the breeds of the Continent, there is an analogy 

 found on the one side between the great breed of the marshes, 

 and the black cattle, natives of the plains and marshes of Hol- 

 land ; and on the other, between the more various kinds on 

 the north of the Humber and these of Holstein and Jutland, 

 whence the best cattle of Northern Europe have sprung. It 

 is not unreasonable to suppose, that these latter breeds may 

 have been introduced during the first period of Saxon coloni- 

 zation by the Jutes and Angles, who settled down in that 



* D. Low's Natural Agricultural History of the Domestic European Animals, etc. 

 Translated by Royer. The llaccs of Great Britain. 



