332 THE OX. 



it is probable that Fifeshire would now have been possessed 

 of a breed combining, in a degree not surpassed by any other 

 in the kingdom, the properties of grazing and yielding milk. 

 But the breed of Fifeshire being now, from whatever 

 causes, mixed, and the Falkland Breed existing in too small 

 a number to allow of any reasonable hope of restoring it, 

 the economical question which arises, is, in what manner the 

 existing varieties may be best improved? This certainly 

 may be effected in the case of the Fifeshire, as of any other 

 cattle, by a careful selection of the parents, and by a conti- 

 nued system of breeding amongst the individuals of the im- 

 proved progeny ; but the end could not be accomplished 

 without the long labour which such improvements demand, 

 and hardly without a more general accordance in the opinion 

 of breeders than now exists, with respect to what the Fife- 

 shire breed really is, or what it should be. While one class 

 of agriculturists shall cultivate a race on the model of the 

 Angus or Galloway, and another, one on the type of the 

 horned Falkland, particular herds and stocks may be im- 

 proved, but no uniform breed can be established. It would 

 seem better, then, to recur at once to a breed already formed, 

 and of recognised goodness. The improved Short-horns, or 

 Durhams, have already supplanted the coarser home-breds 

 over a great part of the British Islands. They have taken 

 root far beyond the Forth, even in the most northern coun- 

 ties ; and in the high range of the Lammermuir, to the south 

 of the same river, the breed is now reared in its purity by 

 every farmer ; and it would be absurd to contend, that a low 

 country like Fife, abounding in fertile soil, capable of pro- 

 ducing turnips and the cultivated grasses, and continually 

 advancing in its agriculture, should not be able to support 

 any of the finest and largest breeds which the Island can 

 produce. Intelligent individuals have already introduced 

 stocks of pure Short-horns, but even the merely crossing with 

 superior Bulls of the breed would at once remove all the 

 harsher characters of the Fifeshire varieties ; and although 



