CHAPTEE XIII. 



The Somerford Park a Domesticated Herd — Probably connected with the 

 Lyme Park and Chartley Herds — My Visit in 1875 — Points of the Cattle 

 — Their Fine Milking Qualities — Probable Use of Diluted Crosses — 

 Antiquity of the Herd — Its Origin — Interesting Evidence as to Colour of 

 the Wild Cattle— The Wollaton Hall Herd— Existing in 1790— Was a 

 Polled Herd— Mr. Burton's Account — Rev. Mr. Willoughby's— This Herd 

 only semi-domesticated — Extinguished by Negligence and In-breeding — 

 Probable Origin of the Wollaton Herd — Greater Tendency to Black in the 

 Southern Herds. 



The Somerford Park Herd demands our attention 

 next. It is a domesticated herd, and a polled one ; but 

 its cattle are very characteristic, and have all the peculiar 

 features of the White Forest breed. It is certainly of 

 great, though unknown, antiquity ; and is probably — 

 now that the Grisburne Park cattle are extinct, and the 

 Hamilton herd has acquired horns — the best represen- 

 tative yet extant of the hornless and tame variety of 

 the originally wild white breed. 



Somerford Park, the seat of Sir Charles Watkin 

 Shakerley, Bart., is a very fine place, from three to five 

 miles — for the park extends to a great distance by the 

 side of the public road — from Congleton, a small town 

 on the Derbyshire side of Cheshire. It does not now 

 contain deer, but is divided into large enclosures ; the 

 oaks and other timber trees are very fine, and the quality 

 of the soil and of the grass it produces is very good. 

 Like almost every other place where we do not find the 

 white breed notoriously an imported one, this park is 



