CHARLES COLLING'S FINAL SALE. 69 



Animal physiology is so critical, and so subtle a science, and the 

 laws of descent are so various in 'their operation, sometimes striking 

 back into the characteristics of a distant ancestor deficient in good 

 quality, and reproducing an almost exact likeness, that those who 

 aim at the highest style of perfection in their animals will scrutinize 

 closely the strains of blood through which they have descended. We 

 cannot but consider that Mr. Berry, in his exaltation of the Galloway 

 cross, has done a decided injury to the Short-horn interest by striv- 

 ing to inculcate the belief that this noble race may be improved by 

 crosses outside of their own blood, thus misleading inexperienced 

 breeders, who, if they practiced on his teaching, would adopt a 

 wretched system of bastardy to stain the finest breed of cattle which 

 the world has produced. 



CHARLES COLLING'S FINAL SALE OF His HERD. 



Tracing the brothers Colling through their breeding career from 

 the year 1780 to 1810 with Charles, and to 1818 and 1820 with 

 Robert, a period of thirty years with one, and forty years with the 

 other, we have witnessed their sagacity in selecting the best stock 

 obtainable from the herds of the earlier breeders in their vicinity, as 

 the foundation of their own. They bred and reared them in the best 

 manner, adopting a system begun by Bakewell, whom they appear to 

 have taken as a model for their own future practice. Finding it suc- 

 cessful they then had the enterprise to make the Short-horn race, 

 previously confined to their own secluded locality, known throughout 

 the richest agricultural portions of the kingdom ; and through ani- 

 mals of their own breeding, made themselves supposed the leading 

 or master-spirits in their production. ]&ich had been successful in 

 his vocation, working in concert, and interchanging, to more or less 

 extent, their bulls in the service of each other's herds. They orig- 

 inated the system of letting bulls for the season to other breeders at 

 roundly paying prices, and as a consequence sold many of them, as 

 well as females, at values hitherto unparalleled in amount. 



Enjoying the prestige of success and reputation, in the month of 

 October, 1810, Charles Colling made a public sale of his herd at 

 Ketton, and retired from breeding. It was then the heyday of 

 agricultural prosperity in the British Islands. England had engaged 

 in the continental wars of Europe against the first Napoleon ; specie 

 payments had been many years suspended by her banks, and at 

 the national treasury; prices of agricultural produce were highly 



