I.aSH LUNG HORNa 



79 



Whence tb ^e long-horns criginally came, is a question. There is 

 no doubt that they very much resemble the English long-horns, and 

 have been materially improved by them ; but whether Ireland or 

 England was the native country of this breed, will never be deter- 

 mined. Ancient records are silent on the subject ; and in both 

 countries we can trace the long-horns to a very remote period. 

 Many persons have concluded that the English long-horns sprunor 

 from some of the imported Irish ones. Others, however, with more 

 reason, finding the middle-horns in every mountainous and unfre- 

 quented part of the country, and the long-homs inhabiting the lower 

 and more thickly inhabited districts, regard the middle-horns as the 

 pure native breed, and the long-horns to have been a stranger race, 

 and introduced probably from Lancashire, where a breed of cattld 

 of the same character and form is found. 



IRISH CATTLE. 



However this may be, there was a variety of circumstances which 

 rendered the march of improvement much more rapid in England 

 than in Ireland. While the British long-horns had materially im- 

 proved, those in Ireland had not progressed in the slightest degree. 



More than a century ago, zealous agriculturists in Meath com- 



