FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



that several of our best breeders have been compelled ^vec and over 

 again to smuggle in Devon bulls in order to deepen the light roan 

 colors that were 'fast reverting to pure white. 



To again revert to the Rev. Mr. Storer. He says : " In entering 

 upon the subject of white in catt'e, especially as regards domestic 

 races, I am quite aware that I expose myself to many adverse opinions, 

 for on this point 'SO MANY AIEX SO MANY OPINIONS'; but 

 it is a subject into which 1 am compelled to enter, for its color has 

 always been the prime distinguishing characteristic of the white forest 

 breed of Great Britain. That color, retained universally, and for so 

 long a time, plainly indicates its antiquity, and may perhaps give some 

 clue to its origin. I fear I shall shock the breeder, English, Scottish, 

 or Welsh ; for he for ages has been endeavouring to eradicate white, 

 and to breed his cattle black, red, or only with so little white as may 

 be necessary to produce a white face or a body slightly flecked with 

 this color. From Land's End to John o' Groats, from Yarmouth to 

 Haverfordwest and you may cross over the Channel and take Ireland, 

 too the white cow is despised and charged with delicacy ; yet here 

 are these ancient British herds some wild, some domesticated ex- 

 posed to many hardships and vicissitudes of co'd and tempestuous 

 c'imates, but all hard as iron, vigorous and white. 



" Mr. Darwin, writing on this particular subject, concludes that 

 iacts show that there is a strong, though not invariable, tendency in 

 wild or escaped cattle, under widely different conditions of life, to 

 become white, with colored ears." 



" In Hungary," says M. Gayot, " the forces of Nature have not yet 

 been turned out of their course by the action o-f man. To this cir- 

 cumstance that country owes the preservation of a race of large cattle, 

 highly characteristic, constant in type, and so distinctive that they 

 have been habitually considered the prototype of the species, as the 

 head or mother race of all others." 



Mr. Marshall, who wrote the rural economy of Yorkshire in 1756, 

 speaking of white cattle, says : " A calf entirely white is generally 

 rejected, under a notion that white cattle are of a tender nature ; 

 that they are peculiarly subject to lousiness and that they are disliked 

 by their associates,." He goes on to say : " The finest ox I ever 

 saw of the Teeswater breed was white. One of the finest cows now 

 in the Vale of Yorkshire is white. Nevertheless, valuable calves are 

 annually sent to the butcher merely because they are all white. Yet 

 the smallest speck of color, even the tip of the ear, red or black, 

 saves them from proscription under a notion, no doubt, that it 

 hardens their nature, defends them from lice, and renders them accept- 

 able to their companions a vulgar error, which is not confined to thi* 

 country, but which ought, in my opinion, to be expelled from the 

 minds of breeders." This writer (Marshall) becomes more and more 

 interesting to us, as he lived and gained his information at a time 

 when the present breeds of beef cattle were being evoluted out of the 

 milking herds of Great Britain and Ireland. 



Mr. Lewis Allan, who was editor of the American Herd Book, has 

 gone to no end of trouble to dispel from our minds the theory put 

 forth over a century ago that the Tce.-.wv.ter Durhams had a large 

 sprinkle of the wild white cattle of Chillingham Park in tluir veins. 

 He says that the earlier animals of the improved breed were red of 

 different shades, red and white, pure white, frequently white on the 

 back with roan necks and heads, and roan or red and white inter- 

 mixed over the body, or in patches, with either more of red or white 

 prevailing. He lost sight, however, like most writers of his day. < f 

 the marked distinct. on between the old Teeswater Durhams and the 

 modern Shorthorns. 



But to return to the white as a despised color in Shorthorns. One 

 of the best bulls owned by Mr. Bates was white. He refused several 

 thousand pounds for this animal when it was up in years. Many of 



138. 



