THE COLLINGS' IMPROVEMENT. 93 



DID THE COLLINGS IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE SHORT-HORNS 

 ABOVE THEIR EXISTING CONDITION WHEN THEY COMMENCED 

 BREEDING? WERE THE COLLINGS' HERDS SUPERIOR TO THOSE 

 OF THEIR CONTEMPORARY BREEDERS AT THE TIMES OF THEIR 

 FINAL SALES? 



After discussing at such length as we have already done the prac- 

 tice in breeding by the Collings, it may seem superfluous to add 

 another word. We have seen that they were men of sagacity and 

 enterprise ; that they found, in the outset of their breeding life, the 

 Short-horns a local, although ancient breed, existing in but a few 

 counties of the north-eastern quarter of England; that although 

 these cattle possessed admirable qualities in themselves, and of great 

 value, through the crosses of their blood, as instruments to improve 

 the general herds then existing in other sections of the Short-horn 

 region, they were still little known beyond their own immediate local- 

 ities. In view of these facts, when establishing their own herds they 

 selected the best animals within their reach, bred them with success, 

 and determined to make them known, and give them a currency 

 throughout those parts of the kingdom where they hitherto had been, 

 and measurably were still strangers. In this they succeeded. Not 

 only did they so succeed, but by adopting a course of breeding at 

 that time, and in their own immediate section, almost if not alto- 

 gether unpracticed, they reared superior cattle to many of the herds 

 around them, and drew public attention conspicuously to their own 

 herds and to their modes of breeding. 



It is possible that some of their contemporaries may have charged 

 them with a species of pretension in their practice, but as their course 

 of breeding was open and well known to those around them, and 

 they relied on public favor to sustain their efforts by purchases of 

 their stock, it is to be presumed their persistence in the course which 

 they had adopted was on the conviction that it was the correct one, 

 leading to the largest success, not only in a pecuniary result, but in 

 the improvement of their stock to the highest perfection of their day. 

 Such, it appears, was the conclusion of those who closely studied 

 their practice, and to the Collings should be awarded the credit of 

 success. 



Not but that there were other breeders unnamed, or but slightly 

 alluded to in these pages who, by a different course of breeding, 

 had produced animals equally good as those of the Collings', but by 



