CHAP. I. SUSSEX CATTLE. 41 



This characteristic of beauty has grown very much in the Sussex 

 cattle of later years." 



The Sussex breed found an appreciative chronicler in Mr Evershed, 

 who wrote : 



" I have no desire to magnify the merits of any particular breed, 

 but I think we may recognise the eager search for the best and 

 quickest beef-makers in the rapid advance of Sussex cattle in the 

 favour of the public. I remember them a heavy and a hardy breed, 

 well suited for the rough pasturage of Sussex, and for wintering well 

 in straw-yards on rather short commons, their food chiefly arising 

 from the daily thumping of the flail. Few turnips were grown in 

 those days, and the cattle had to ' rough it ' in straw-yards in winter, 

 and in clover, grass, and stubble fields during the rest of the year. 

 They were a big breed, however, and Mr. Youatt was able to describe 

 them, sixty years ago, as having deep, round barrels, straight backs, 

 big bellies, great capacity of the parts containing the heart, lungs, 

 and digestive organs, and wide loins with ' spread-out ' hip-bones. 

 They were well ribbed up, too ; but they had not the beauty and 

 symmetry of the Devons, and although they made a great weight of 

 beef at three or four years old, or later after their period of service as 

 working oxen was over, the principle of early maturity had not been 

 specially developed in their case as it has been since. At the present 

 time, I believe, no one will dispute that few breeds have attracted 

 more attention than that of Sussex, and that their special merit is 

 acknowledged to be the production of a large amount of beef of good 

 quality, on a moderate amount of food, at an early age. Competition 

 is too keen to admit of any breed getting far ahead of others ; but 

 although the Sussex cattle may be equalled as economic meat-makers, 

 they are certainly unsurpassed. The carcass test is not yet applied at 

 the Shows of the Smithfield Club, as it has been for many years at 

 Chicago, Kansas, and elsewhere ; but I can quote from the ' Live- 

 stock Journal ' that among the butchers' reports of prize beasts sold 

 at the Show of 1888, a Sussex beast came out best in the proportion 

 of dressed carcass to live weight. The Sussex cattle are still blemished 

 by a certain coarseness and want of symmetry, but their breeders are 

 getting rid of these faults, and they are doing so, one may hope, and 

 obtaining fine bone and mellow skin, and the sweet countenance and 

 beauty of form of the dainty Devons, without sacrificing the large 

 frames and the hardy and robust constitution of the Sussex breed. 

 The first volume of the ' Sussex Herd-book ' is dated 1879 ; but 

 breeders now grown old have told me that their grandfathers, far back 

 in the last century, owned excellent herds of the red cattle of the 

 country, which they had greatly improved. Arthur Young was fond of 

 telling the same story, and his ' Annals ' contain interesting accounts 

 of the herds of his friends in Sussex, and of their working oxen and 

 the mountains of beef they made at six or seven years old." 



THE LONG-HORNED Leicestershire or Craven cattle are descended 

 from a breed long established in the Craven district, in Yorkshire, where 



