aio SHROPSHIRE 



Notable as were our host's sheep, his Hereford 

 cattle were even more striking. Herefords always 

 look very uniform, but we had never seen anything 

 to match his herd, where all the cows might be own 

 sisters, so close were they to type. After the Short- 

 horn the Herefords have travelled the most widely 

 of all cattle, and this they owe to their power of rang- 

 ing and putting up with rough conditions, which causes 

 them in many places to be preferred to the Shorthorn, 

 though the latter undoubtedly yield meat of finer 

 quality and grow more rapidly on the better class of 

 land. The Herefords are probably descended from 

 the old race of red cattle which are supposed to have 

 come in with the Saxons the Devons, the Sussex, 

 and the Lincoln Reds being other offshoots of the 

 same primitive stock. Some features in the shape 

 point to this common origin, while the characteristic 

 white face and the very massive head are known to 

 have been evolved at no very distant date. Like the 

 Sussex and the Devons they are exclusively beef 

 cattle ; some of their supporters claim that they can 

 be made to milk freely, but under ordinary management 

 the dams always suckle their calves, and it is well 

 known that only the greater strain of milking will 

 develop the udder to the extent required of a true 

 dairy cow. Our host's animals were all bred with 

 entire white faces, the red ring round the eye, which a 

 few years ago was demanded by the foreign buyers 

 because it was supposed to render stock less liable 

 to ophthalmia in hot countries, being no longer in 

 fashion. 



Despite the drought the crops were good on this 

 light land, though the barley had come rather too 

 early to harvest and was on the thin side, but the grass 

 even down by the stream was suffering and was 



