148 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



Hitherto the Short-horns seem to have been 

 bred without any regard for pedigree in any 

 way. They were indigenous, as it were, to that 

 section of England, where they were bred, at 

 least thoroughly fixed, as a natural element of 

 the agricultural interests of that region, and 

 bred for milk and beef, for the general farm- 

 ers purposes, for the dairy, and the butcher. 

 They were in a state of ordinary domestication, 

 unpampered, uninfluenced by any course of 

 special breeding or improvement except such 

 intelligent selection as the thrifty farmers had 

 done to forward their profits out of the nat- 

 ural products of live stock. There was no 

 danger of disease and want of stamina inher- 

 ited from overbred ancestors and transmitted 

 and transmissible through untold generations. 

 The Collings had a task before them which was 

 easy to point out, but difficult to perform. 

 They had a sturdy, but somewhat rough, raw 

 material *, it was for them to cultivate and re- 

 fine it. In Lady Maynard and Hubback they 

 seem to have felt that Providence had given 

 them exceptional specimens to work on. In 

 Favorite, by a combination of these and other 

 excellent specimens of the older, a later and 

 modified starting point was obtained. In Fa- 

 vorite the new movement was begun. In 

 short, it may almost be said that he was the 

 embodiment of that movement. With him the 



