FIRST CENTURY OF DAIRYING IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 



then upwards and inwards, broad hips, short legs, loose skin, covered 

 with a coat oi fine hair of a variety of shades, including red, white, 

 roan, and reddish brown in spots, and brindled streaks. The cow 

 has well-developed milk-veins, and large, well-developed udder. It 

 is claimed by Xorman authorities that they are the best dairy cattle 

 in the world, and they unquestionably hold the leading positio/n 

 among French breeds. Their position in France is similar to that 

 of the Yorkshire Shorthorn in the London dairies fifty or sixty years 

 ago. Originally the Normandy cattle were undersized, mere' but- 

 ter-making machines; but of late years they have been developed 

 into general-purpose animals, and their beef equally valued with 

 their milk and butter. This general purpose quality has become 

 of great importance to small proprietors in France, as it enables 

 them to turn to profitable account their cast-off cows and surplus males. 

 They are heavy eaters, and require an abundance of nutritious food. 

 The strongest claim to public favour made on behalf of this breed 

 is oti the ground of its hardiness and freedom from all tuberculosis 

 taints. There are throughout the dairying centres of France several 

 other breeds which, by their small size, fineness of bone, and colour, 

 carry about with them evidence of their descent from the Bos Longi- 

 frons. Between some of these breeds, and the cattle of the Channel 

 Islands there is a sufficiently close similarity, according to the best 

 authorities, to make their kinship a matter ot certainty. There is 

 every evidence to show, at any rate for our purpose, that there were 

 large and small breeds on the French coast prior to the days of 

 King John. These smaller breeds would, undoubtedly, be selected 

 as the most suitable for the Channel Inlands 



As with the merino breed of sheep, so it was with the Longhorned 

 breed of cattle. The merino had been bred for centuries in the 

 North of Spain. Thence the sheep were taken to Saxony, and 

 there called the "Saxon Merino." When Mr. William E. Riley, ot 

 Raby, Liverpool, New South Wales, commenced sheep breeding he 

 imported these sheep froon Saxony, and their progeny he called the 

 "Saxon-Raby" sheep. In any of the old prints can be seen an ad- 

 vertisement stating that at this or that sale would be offered a num- 

 ber qf Mr. Riley's "Saxon-Raby" sheep, or pure bred rams. The 

 Longhorns existed as a breed in Ireland for centuries. In time 

 they were carried into England. They had been long noted for 

 vigorous constitution and great milking habits. They soon became 

 very plentiful in Leicestershire. Lancashire, and other counties. 

 This breed had been in possession of the Bakewell family at Dishley 

 for a very long period, certainly, long before Mr. Robert Bakewell 

 was born. Of that family, however, very little is known, beyond 

 this, that Robert was born in 1725, on the farm that his father and 

 grandfather had been tenants. 



In 1755 Robert began breeding and perfecting these Longhorns 

 for sale. Subsequently the breed was named the "Craven" or "New 

 Leicester." It was under the latter name that Youatt at- 

 tempts to describe them in his. work on cattle. This same breed 

 of cattle Mr. Bates used in perfecting the Teeswater Durhams, 

 which were the Longhorned Durhams of 1800. From the Long- 

 horned Durham was bred the Shorthorn Durham of 1850. 



Tt was, however, under the name of Longhorns, Craven or Leices- 

 ter, or Lanceshire breed that Messrs. John Macarthur. John Terry 

 Hughes, W. C. Wentworth, and others knew and bred the Bakewell 

 cattle in New South Wales. But when we come to draw any dis- 

 tinction between the direct offshoot of this breed, to wit, the Long- 

 horned Durham and the Shorthorn Durham, there is much dispute 

 and difficulty among the various sections of breeders. If we watch 

 the growth of horn on animals allowed to run semi wild for a few 



218. 



