152 CATTLE-BREEDING. 



of Leicestershire sheep even than he was of 

 Short-horn cattle. Says an English writer in 

 speaking of Robert Colling: "There is little 

 doubt that Bakewell's great principle of in- 

 and-in breeding was carried out most success- 

 fully by the Collings. Father to daughter and 

 mother to son were the principal direct alli- 

 ances, and the system was continued so long as 

 robustness and form were upheld." The Coil- 

 ings, indeed, may be said to have carried out 

 the Bakewell method of in-and-in breeding to 

 its utmost limit ; to have found what advan- 

 tages it really possessed, and to have proved 

 that it could not be carried beyond a certain 

 point. It was freely said that the cause of the 

 Collings retiring was their having reached a 

 point beyond which they could not advance, 

 and that they found their stock becoming dis- 

 eased and tending to retrograde. If this was 

 so, the neighboring breeders had not lost con- 

 fidence in their cattle, for they bid them in at 

 good round prices. It is interesting to note 

 that at Charles Colling' s sale no family made 

 such phenomenal prices as those having the 

 " alloy," or Galloway cross. This outcross from 

 the breed to another breed was a remarkable 

 thing to do, and Colling had mingled the stream 

 through grandson of Bolingbroke with his most 

 esteemed blood. It was by some long claimed 

 that Charles Colling distinctly regarded them 



