THE UNITED KINGDOM. 59 



verbial deep milker, but the slightest dash of the former seems to bring 

 out the latent lactial fertility of the Hereford. 



Mr. E. C. Tisdall some few years since published in the British Dairy 

 Farmer Association's Journal a record of the milk yields of sixty of his 

 most famous milkers, and the best of them all was a cow called "Old 

 Hereford n which answered to the latter description. Mr. Tisdall sup- 

 plies the Kensington district at the West End of London with milk and 

 butter, and keeps a large herd of dairy cows. 



Herefords have always been deemed better for the dairy in Dorset 

 and Somerset than in their own native county, because probably they 

 are more educated to serve that purpose. The breed has extended into 

 Cornwall, and Mr. Lewis Lloyd has cultivated it in Surrey within six 

 miles of the metropolis. At the last Smithfield show he gained second 

 and third prizes in the class of steers under two years old, one of his 

 animals weighing 14 cwt. 20 pounds when only a day under the two 

 years' limit. There used to be three distinct kinds of Herefords, the 

 mottle-faced, the gray, and the white-faced red, which latter being 

 smaller in bone than the former, has well-nigh everywhere supplanted 

 the other two. 



The uprise of the breed in celebrity may be considered contempora- 

 neous with the Smithfield Club shows, which very much promoted it, 

 for Mr. Westear won first prizes for oxen at the first Smithfield show 

 in 1799, and continued to do so at the London shows for twenty years. 

 In fact the Smithfield show record from 1799 to 1834 gives the premi- 

 ums won by the Herefords as 88, more than double those of any other 

 breed. The Hereford is no doubt an extraordinary grazier, and being 

 likewise of great constitutional vigor and famous for possessing broad, 

 deep, compact forms, there can scarcely be any wonder why it has be- 

 come so great a favorite in the .western prairies of America or in Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand. In a general way the cattle feed to good me- 

 dium weights not quite so heavy as some Shorthorns perhaps, but very 

 much more so than the Devon. 



tfHE SHORTHORNS. 



The physical characteristics of the Shorthorn breed may be described, 

 as follows : 



As the name indicates the horn is short, semicircularly curved, and rather flat. 

 The color of the animals varies from a white to a yellowish tinge of white, some are 

 red, others red and white, and sometimes the white and red are blended, forming a 

 beautiful variegation called "roan," formerly strawberry color. The head is hand- 

 some, intelligent, and the expression docile ; the eye is bright and full ; the ears are 

 thinandfine, well covered with hair ; the neck is short, carry ing the head gracefully, and 

 springing straight from the back, which is also straight and broad and round. The ribs 

 arch roundly from the backbone ; the hips are well covered and not very prominent; 

 the hind quarters are long and full to the tail, which hangs straight and square from 

 the body ; the thighs are full and deep and broad ; the lega are short and straight, 

 the under line is even ; the shoulders are well laid, oblique, and falling well on the' 

 body, so as to form a round deep chest with a full swelling bosom ; the udder is large 

 and soft, coming well forward, and the teats hang squarely from it. The body is well 

 covered with fine soft hair, and the hide is mellow, with a rich appearance indicating 

 the excellent quality of the beef. Altogether the animal, owing to the evenness with 

 which it lays on its flesh, forms nearly a parallelogram; its strong constitution 

 makes it adaptable to all soils and climates, and its excellencies are so great that its 

 admirers claim for it the title to be placed as the first of our national breeds. 



Shorthorns are more generally propagated than any other British 

 breed of cattle, although scarcely known beyond the valley of the Tees 

 before the commencement of the present century. Their original name 

 was Teeswater or Durham cattle, and they are still known more as Dur- 



