I 



CATTLE 167 



Carrots were also now grown as a field crop in places, 

 especially near London, two sorts being known, the yellow 

 and red, used chiefly by farmers for feeding their hogs.^ Of 

 wheat the names were many, but there were apparently only 

 seven distinct sorts, the Double-eared, Eggshell, Red or 

 Kentish, Great-bearded, Pollard, Grey, and Flaxen or Lam- 

 mas.2 The growth of saffron had declined, though the English 

 variety was the best in the world, according to Lawrence, and 

 except in Cambridgeshire and about Saffron Walden it was 

 little known. 



Though it was still some time before the days of Bakewell, 

 increased attention was given to cattle-breeding ; it was urged 

 that a well-shaped bull be put to cows, one that had ' a broad 

 and curled forehead, long horns, fleshy neck, and a belly long 

 and large.' ^ Such in 1726 was the ideal type of the long- 

 horns of the Midland and the north, but it was noticed that 

 of late years and especially in the north the Dutch breed was 

 much sought after^ which had short horns and long necks, the 

 breed with which the ColHngs were to work such wonders. 

 The then great price of £20 had been given for a cow of this 

 breed. Bradley, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, and 

 a well-known writer on agriculture, divided the cattle of 

 England into three sorts according to their colour : the black, 

 white, and red.^ The black, commonly the smallest, was the 

 strongest for labour, chiefly found in mountainous countries ; 

 also bred chiefly in Cheshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and 

 Derbyshire, sixty years before this, and in those days Cheshire 

 cheese came from these cattle, apparently very much like the 

 modern Welsh breed.^ The white were much larger, and 



* J. Lawrence, New System of Agriculture, p. 112. 



^ Ibid. p. 92. About 1757 Lucerne, hitherto little grown in England, took 

 its place in the rotation of crops. ' Ibid. p. 130. 



* A General Treatise on Husbandry (1726), i. 72 ; cf. c. 



^ The black cattle seem to have been spread very generally over 

 England, according to previous writers and to Defoe, who often mentions 

 them. He saw a ' prodigious quantity ' in the meadows by the Waveney 

 in Norfolk. — Tour, i. 97. 



