THE SHORT-HORNED BREED. 381 



of which have come down to us, shewing the great weight at 

 which individual animals from time to time arrived. Mr 

 Dobinson, before referred to, became likewise a very success- 

 ful breeder ; and various other gentlemen are noted as im- 

 provers of the Teeswater Breed, chiefly after the successful 

 experiments of Bakewell had excited a spirit of emulation in 

 this species of improvement. Up to the period of the Ame- 

 rican war, however, the Teeswater Breed had not gained 

 greatly in public estimation, beyond the district to which it 

 had early extended. Great size seems to have been chiefly 

 aimed at by the breeders ; and the animals, though valued on 

 this account, were of forms comparatively coarse, great con- 

 sumers of food, and deficient in many of those points which 

 are now regarded as essential in a well-formed ox. In the 

 qualities of form and disposition to fatten readily, the Short- 

 horned Breed fell short of that which Bakewell had already 

 perfected in the midland counties, although excelling the 

 latter in the quality of the flesh, in the production of inter- 

 nal fat or tallow, and in the adaptation of the females to the 

 uses of the dairy. 



The improvement of the Teeswater Short-horns, however, 

 had been continually advancing in the hands of the breeders 

 who cultivated it, when Charles and Robert Colling of Dar- 

 lington became its ultimate improvers, removing, with admi- 

 rable skill, the defects which it inherited, and communicating 

 to it properties which it did not before possess in the same 

 degree. These individuals had become considerable farmers 

 soon after the year 1770. Mr Charles Colling, the younger 

 brother, is justly regarded as the founder of the new breed, 

 although his elder brother followed him in his course of en- 

 terprise and improvement, step by step. Charles Colling 

 cannot, indeed, be compared with Bakewell for boldness and 

 originality of design ; but he was greatly more fortunate 

 in the selection of a basis for his breed. Colling, like Bake- 

 well, seems to have regarded size in his animals as a qua- 

 lity secondary and subordinate to those which he wished 



