66 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 



marked ancestral influence among us, is to be found in 

 the ill-begotten, round-breeched calves occasionally, 

 and not very unfrequently, dropped by cows of the 

 common mixed kind, and which, if killed early, make 

 very blue veal, and if allowed to grow up, become 

 exceedingly profitless and unsatisfactory beasts ; the 

 heifers being often sterile, the cows poor milkers, the 

 oxen dull, mulish beasts, yielding flesh of very dark 

 color, ill flavor and destitute of fat. They are known 

 by various names in different localities, in Maine as the 

 ''Whitten'' and ''Peter Waldo" breed, in Massachu- 

 setts as " Yorkshire" and " Westminster," in New York 

 as the '' Pumpkin buttocks," in England as " Lyery^' 

 or " Lyery Dutch," &c., &c. 



Those in northern New England are believed to be 

 descended chiefly from a bull brought from Watervliet, 

 near Albany, New York, more than forty years ago, 

 (in 1818,) by the Shakers at Alfred, in York county, 

 Maine, and afterwards transferred to their brethren in 

 Cumberland county. No one who has proved the 

 worthlessness of these cattle can readily believe that 

 any bull of this sort would have been knowingly kept 

 for service since the first one brought into the State, 

 and yet it is by no means a rare occurrence to find 

 calves dropped at the present time bearing unmistaka- 

 ble evidence of that origin. 



It seems likely that this disagreeable peculiarity was 



