18 THE COMPLETE GKAZIER. BOOK i. 



The rules of breeding by which he accomplished them we learn from 

 Culley : " Mr. Bakewell has not had a cross from any other breed 

 than his own for upwards of twenty years. His best stock has been 

 bred by the nearest affinities, yet they have not decreased in size, 

 neither are they less hardy or more liable to disorders, but on the 

 contrary have kept in a progressive state of improvement." The idea, 

 in short, was to breed the best from the best without regard to affinity 

 of blood, on the principle that like begets like. This was the revolu- 

 tionary doctrine which Bakewell taught by his practice not that he 

 proclaimed it to the world, for he was a reticent man, who preferred to 

 work quietly, unobserved by the public. Yet the fame of his stock 

 whether cattle, horses, sheep, or pigs spread to all lands, and the 

 farm in Leicestershire attracted universal attention Russian princes, 

 French and German royal dukes, British peers, and sightseers of every 

 degree flocked to Dishley the breeders' Mecca and the principles so 

 successfully carried out there with the Longhorn cattle and the 

 Leicester sheep were imitated by others by Benjamin Tomkins with 

 the Herefords in 1769, by the brothers Colling with the Shorthorns in 

 1770, and by Quartly with the Devons about the same time. How 

 they progressed in the work we will now proceed to relate in the 

 accounts of the modern breeds of British cattle and sheep, which are 

 acknowledged to be the best in the world. The demand in Bakewell's 

 day was for fat meat. Times have changed, and other live-stock 

 improvers have had to provide beef and mutton with more lean and 

 less fat in order to suit the altered taste of consumers. Thej r have 

 thus been compelled to vary their systems of breeding, but they have 

 all proceeded on the lines inaugurated by Bakewell, adapting his 

 broad general principles to the varied conditions that have arisen. 



THE MODERN BREEDS OF BRITISH CATTLE. In giving a general 

 description of the breeds of cattle which are met with in various 

 districts, and which claim the attention of the farmers of the British 

 Isles, it will be appropriate to select those to which places are assigned 

 in the catalogue of the Eoyal Agricultural Society of England at its 

 Meetings. The sections for cattle at Newcastle in 1908 were the 

 following: Shorthorn, Lincoln Ked, Hereford, Devon, South Devon, 

 Sussex, Longhorn, Welsh, Red Polled, Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, 

 Highland, Ayrshire, Jersey, Guernsey, Kerry, Dexter Kerry. The 

 Lincoln Red and the South Devons are recent additions to this list 

 which now have herd-books of their own. 



THE SHORTHORN CATTLE. Under the denomination of Shorthorns 

 "the red, white and roan" of modern writers are included the 

 Holderness and Teeswater breeds, 1 which have been supposed to derive 



1 The Holderness, a fine, large-framed breed, with good backs, long quarters, remarkably 

 clean and straight legs, and well-developed udders, grazed in the district north of the Humber. 

 Many of them were white, with blue or bay flecks ; but the largest number were dark 

 mouse and white, and, as was natural from their proximity to Hull and their general 

 appearance, they were thought to be of Dutch origin. Under the local name of ' Tees- 

 waters," the Shorthorns, to which the Holderness seemed to bear most affinity in character, 



