66 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



stream, when he became weighty, and, when exhausted, 

 sliding obedient to the hook. A flat at both ends, might 

 not Dr. Johnson have remarked, in improvement of his 

 well-known definition of a fisherman ? 



But on the adjoining meadow I notice there will soon 

 be a bite sufficient for my precious Shorthorns. Where- 

 fore precious ? for did I not once speak lightly of the 

 breed, as a transient thing of beauty soon to pass away ? 

 The lapse of years has, however, shown one that there 

 has of late sprung up a line of farmers so fond of the 

 sort, and so skilled in their cultivation, and further, too, 

 that the breed has in it so much promise of ultimate 

 deep milking, as well as fat-producing, that I believe it 

 to be now as firmly established in the taste of the 

 nation as cricket and the thoroughbred horse. What, 

 then, should the young farmer do? Buy Booth or 

 Bates, and nothing else ? Why, most certainly not ; 

 unless you wish the breed indeed to wane and dwindle 

 away. Get fixed in your eye one special type of form, 

 such as you may have noticed to have ah'eady obtained 

 (as Disraeli said of Peel's quotations) the meed of public 

 approbation ; then, at the sales of really well- descended 

 stock, buy such (not too hastily nor too numerously) 

 heifers as you see of the stamp you love — almost every- 

 one has his own ideas as to the exact form requisite for 

 beauty. Then purchase a bull of noble alliance, and 

 the offspring of parents that are known to transmit 

 their type and likeness strongly. There is much in this. 

 Your object should be to try and breed up a herd of one 

 particular style. So Sir Charles Knightley acted, in his 

 successful aim at a fine shoulder in his animals. 



It is folly and nonsense to get together for breeding 

 pui-poses a herd of all sorts as regards shape and cha- 



