x83 



IX.— CATTLE. 



A MEMBER of an old Westmorland family, describing his home 

 on the hilly slopes north of Burneside and Potter Fell in 1675, 

 says : " Pleasant woods and gardens ; ground full of fallow deer, 

 feed on all somer time ; brave venison pasties and great store of reed 

 (red) deer on the mountains, and white wild cattle with black ears 

 only on the moors." The intervening years must be passed over, 

 carrying with them the extinction of the white, wild cattle and the 

 substitution of black cattle, which were to be seen in great numbers 

 on the fells and commons a century later. 



In the beginning of the nineteenth century the cattle in the northern 

 part of the county were of the Galloway and Irish type, while those 

 in the southern divisions were of the long-homed and Galloway breeds. 

 Pringle remarks in 1794 that " the cattle were long-homed and 

 very much resembled the Lancashire breed," and that " the attention 

 that was formerly paid to the breed of black cattle has rather diminished 

 of late years, though numerous herds of black cattle are to be seen 

 upon the commons. The farmer keeps just such cows as he has 

 bred, and they by no means yield so much milk as would be expected, 

 they estimate the expense of keeping a milk cow at five pounds a year, 

 and the produce at eight pounds." Youatt assigns Westmorland 

 as the native land of the Longhoms, where " they used to exist in 

 their greatest purity," and it was with bulls bought in the county 

 that Webster founded the Cauley herd (1730-60), and Bakewell his 

 more famous Dishley breed of cattle (1755-95). The same author 

 writes : " The farmers have suffered the best of their stock to be 

 drawn away, in order to keep up that of the Midland counties, while 

 the best of the Teeswater are brought into Westmorland in return." 

 The far-seeing Westmorland farmer was no loser by the exchange. 

 " The southern border of Westmorland," wrote Wm. Housman, 

 " and that part of North Lancashire which strikes its wedge-end in 

 between Westmorland on the north-west and Yorkshire on the north- 

 east, was the northern stronghold if not the fountain head of the original 



