232 [Assembly 



climates ; those situated far apart and in the same latitude, are 

 often very different, and there is considerable dificrence often 

 found in places quite near each other, so as to affect the health 

 of man and animals, in a greater or less degree, on a change or 

 removal. Sometimes, in places quite near, it is owing to local 

 causes whicli are easily ascertained, at others, to supposed or 

 speculative causes, when the true one may be a mere change, and 

 requiring a residence for a time to habituate the person or animal 

 to the real or supposed causes of unheal thiness. 



The second generation arc often improved by the change in all 

 the attributes of health, such as strength, hardiness, size, and ac- 

 tivity. It is now well settled, by the best farmers and graziers, 

 both scientific and practical, and those who have written most 

 ably on the subject, that the best breed of cattle that nov/ exist 

 in Great Eritain, and which are equal to any in the world, have 

 been matured and acquired within the last fifty or sixty years. 

 This lias been effected by various crossings of different animals 

 of the best stocks of some of the southern counties of Scotland, 

 with tliose of the northern counties of England. Tliis, wc believe, 

 was the beginning of llie improvement. 



As an instance, and to show how it commenced and progressed 

 througli the United Kingdoms, we will take tlie famous Dur- 

 ham breed. The late Rev. H. Berry has, perhaps, given the 

 best history of its rise and progress. "Durham and Yorkshire," 

 lie says, " have been famous for ages for a breed of these (Dur- 

 haras), possessing extraordinary value as milkers." "Which 

 qualities," Mr. Youatt, who wrote some time after, says, "taken 

 as a breed, have never been equalled. The cattle so distinguished 

 were always, as now, very different from the improved race. 

 They were generally of large size, thin skinned, sleek haired, bad 

 handlers, rather delicate In constitution, coarse in offal, and 

 strikingly defective in substance ot girth in the fore quarters. 

 As milkers, they were most excellent, more for quantity than for 

 quality. When put to fatten, as the foregoing descri2:>tion indi- 

 cates, they were found slow feeders, producing an inferior quali- 

 ty of meat, not marbled or mixed as to fat and lean, the latter 

 sometimes of a very dark. hue. Sucii, too, are the uniminoved 



