THE COLLING BROTHERS. 35 



years before the Ceilings began his fame was abroad through the 

 chief stock-breeding counties of England, and had long before 

 reached the precincts of the Tees. At the outset of the brothers' 

 career in breeding, they paid Bakewell repeated visits, closely exam- 

 ined his stock, saw the improvements he had made in them over 

 the faulty originals from which he had reared them, and took many 

 shrewd lessons in his manner of proceeding. They bought improved 

 sheep of him, divided them with each other, and followed his prac- 

 tice in breeding them. The system adopted by Bakewell the Ceilings 

 determined to pursue with their Short-horns, which they had now 

 selected for their own breeding. 4$. 



About the year 1780 perhaps a year or two earlier, or later, for 

 we have not the exact date of their beginning the Collings became 

 stock breeders before settling at Barmpton and Ketton. " The best 

 specimens of Short-horns jDf that time, generally, were wide-backed, 

 well-framed cows, deep in their fore quarters, soft and mellow in 

 their hair and 'handling,' and possessing, with average milking qual- 

 ities, a remarkable disposition to fatten. Their horns were rather 

 longer than those of their descendants of the present day, and widen- 

 ing upwards. The faults were those of an undue prominence of the 

 hip and shoulder joints, a want of length in the hind quarters, of 

 width in the floor of the chest, of fullness generally before and behind 

 the shoulders, as well as upon the shoulder itself. They had a 

 somewhat disproportionate abdomen [large bellies], too long in the 

 legs, and a want of substance, indicative of delicacy in the hide. 

 They failed also in the essential requisite of taking on their flesh 

 evenly and firmly over the whole frame, which frequently gave them 

 an 1 unlevel appearance. There was, moreover, a general want of 

 compactness in their conformation."* Of such material, mainly 

 although some of the Tees breeders had cattle with more of the 

 good qualities, and less faulty than others the Collings found the 

 Teeswater, or Short-horn cattle, when they began their course as 

 breeders. It is evident that the animals needed improvement, and 

 that of a radical kind. 



We have already recited the weights of some of the cattle anterior 

 to the Collings. From them we know that they could be fed to an 

 extraordinary weight, whatever the precise quality of their flesh 

 might prove, or the amount of offal they threw off. Culley, after 

 many years earlier Short-horn experience and observation, writing 



* Mr. Carr, of Stackhouse, in his history of the Booth Short-horns. 



