MILCH COWS 239 



twelve cows in milk and made some butter, but chiefly 

 he sold bull calves and milch cows as heifers before or 

 after their first calf, the staple trade of the district 

 being to supply the demand of the cowkeepers in and 

 about the Lancashire towns for heavy milkers. In the 

 local markets of Preston, Hellifield, Settle, and Skipton 

 these milking Shorthorns of the finest type are sold in 

 great numbers ; and English stock-raising is suffering 

 a great and continuous loss in that these magnificent 

 animals do not reproduce themselves. They may raise 

 two or three more calves, but the dairyman is generally 

 quite indifferent what sort of bull he uses, and disposes 

 of the calves for veal, also fattening off the cows them- 

 selves when still in their early prime. Improvement 

 of the milking strains becomes very much slower 

 through this practice ; for the town dairyman pays long 

 prices and picks out the deepest milkers and the finest 

 frames, only to withdraw them from future use as 

 breeders. Walking about these upland pastures and 

 looking at the noble groups of heifers and milch cows 

 on almost every farm, we could not help feeling what 

 a set of scrubs and misfits was the ordinary milking 

 herd in the Midlands or the South. 



Of course the cattle cannot graze far up the hillside ; 

 sheep are therefore equally important items in the farm- 

 ing of the district. We were fairly in the region of the 

 mountain breeds, and confronted with some of the 

 knottiest problems of classification and origin that 

 exist. Even the local experts were content to merge 

 some of the hill sheep as " roughs " ; and to the end of 

 our stay we should have remained incapable of dis- 

 tinguishing between Lonks and Swaledales or even 

 Scotch Blackfaces, if we had been set to sort out the 

 common bred country flocks. But we were in the 

 proper home of the Lonk, a big, upstanding sheep with 



