92 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



such a system; but he had a large stock on 

 which to work, and no one knew his occasional 

 deviations from this rule, nor his skillful inter- 

 positions of remote affinities when he saw or 

 apprehended danger. The truth of the matter 

 is that the master spirits of that day had no 

 sooner disappeared than the character of this 

 breed began imperceptibly to change. It had 

 acquired a delicacy of constitution inconsistent 

 with common management and keep, and it 

 began slowly but undeniably to deteriorate. 

 Many of them had been bred to that degree of 

 refinement that the propagation of the species 

 was not always certain." 



Bat the example had been taken to heart, 

 and many breeders began to adopt with many 

 kinds of stock the "Bakewell method." In the 

 Short-horn counties a number of breeders be- 

 gan a general movement toward improvement. 

 They began with the Bakewell method in a 

 modified form, and perhaps never used it in so 

 extreme a form as did some of the Longhorn 

 breeders. The Collings, for instance, the most 

 notable as improvers in the Short-horn field, 

 did not use their great bull Hub back in any- 

 thing like the incestuous manner that other 

 bulls were used. It was not till Favorite (252) 

 appeared that the great piece of in-and-in 

 breeding in Short-horn history was inaugu- 

 rated. Favorite's sire and dam were both by 



