THE EARLIER SHORT-HORNS. 225 



THE STYLE, FIGURE AND QUALITY, WHICH SHOULD REPRESENT A 

 PERFECT SHORT-HORN. 



To demonstrate this we should, perhaps, have a portrait, model, 

 or diagram of the animal we purpose to describe ; but such an one 

 is difficult to obtain, and could we obtain it, objection might be made 

 that it represented a particular animal, of certain blood or breeding, 

 whose conspicuity in a work of this character might show partiality 

 in us, the imputation of which we wish to avoid. We shall, there- 

 fore, speak of what should be, rather than what is in any animal with 

 which we are familiar. We have occasionally seen a Short-horn 

 which we considered almost, if not quite, perfect. We have recited 

 the histories of some which -seemed almost perfect in the eyes of 

 judges of them in the days of the earlier breeders the Maynards, 

 Wetherels, Collings, Booths, Mason, and their contemporaries, as well 

 as to others now living. But they were not altogether so, as some 

 deficient points in them have been detected. Nor do we think 

 their standard of perfection was then so high as it is at the present 

 time. We believe the standard of excellence has improved within 

 the last seventy years, and that the average quality of well-bred Short- 

 horns is higher now than in the years 1800 to 1830, although many 

 animals of surpassing excellence, and known by name, existed in 

 those days, as we have seen by portraits and descriptions of them. 



The mass of the old Short-horns, as we have seen, were faulty 

 coarse, many of them, sleazily made up, too prominent in bone, hard 

 in the handling, lacking flesh in the most valuable parts of the car- 

 cass, and having too much offal for their net weight. Their shoulders 

 stood too far forward, were too upright and open at the tops ; their 

 fore ribs were too flat, with too little flesh on their crops, those points 

 being hollow, or concave, leaving neither roasts nor steaks upon them. 

 That was, perhaps, their greatest fault, and the most difficult to over- 

 come. There were other deficiencies which have been already enu- 

 merated and need not be repeated. Yet the cows were generally 

 great milkers, and great milkers even at the present day are more 

 apt to fail in those points than in almost any others. The reader 

 will understand that we now speak of the Short-horns of some cen- 

 turies ago, before their breeders had discovered the capabilities of the 

 race" in the extent of improvement to which they have since attained. 

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