HISTORY OF H E E E F R D CATTLE 



59 



you would have been so kind as to have shown 

 me why you still adhered to that opinion and 

 where (in that ox) 1 and all others whom I 

 heard speak of him were mistaken. 



''In my letter, which you inserted in No. G7, 

 I took the liberty of observing that in your 

 62d number you (mentioning that the Sussex 

 cattle were not so broad and heavy in the shoul- 

 der -as the Herefordshire) said, 'whether this 

 is a fault wiU admit an argument.^ I expressed 

 my wish that you had expounded the argument 

 against its being a fault. You did not favor 

 my wish with any notice, either in the Annals 

 or in your letter. But as these particulars, by 

 which the right and best shape and make to 

 be aimed for in breeding cattle are, as you have 

 often observed, of much consequence to public 

 benefit, as well as to the particular interest of 

 every individual who breeds cattle, many or 

 few ; I will still hope you will favor us with the 

 argument to prove a light and narrow shoulder 

 to be no fault. I still undertake to produce 

 you, any day of the year, ocular and manual 

 proof, that it may be weighty, broad and fat, 

 also without being found a deduction from the 

 more valuable parts. 



"As by what you said of the advertisement 

 above mentioned, I find my last years weighty 

 ox, which you viewed and handled here, did not 

 make the impression on you I thought he must, 

 and that I had conceived he did by your not 

 then mentioning an objection to what I said. 

 I will hope for the favor of your company here 

 scmetime this season, when I may have some 

 of my feeding stock in a state of proof to that 

 impartial equality all parts of a beef may be 

 looked for, in respect to weight and fatness, as 

 v/ell as I shall have lean slock at home which 

 may afford very intelligent signs of what, with 

 the greatest confidence, might be expected, 

 when coming to that proof. 



"You mentioned in your 63d number of the 

 Annals, when speaking of the stock of this 

 place, that I was a 'warm advocate of the 

 Herefordshire breed of cattle and sheep;' I am 

 so from the result of long experience; if I am 

 wrong it is not for the want of painstaking, or 

 being thoroughly acquainted with several other 

 breeds, and those particularly about which there 

 has been most said, at least in the print, as to 

 which, after a long continued trial (and in the 

 outset of the trial as confident expectation as 

 anybody could have of finding them better than 

 the Herefords), in the end, being of opinion 

 that in most respects they were very greatly in- 

 ferior to them. 



"As you have named me of council for the 

 Herefordshire breed, you will allow me to en- 



treat that an evidence, whose testimony (from 

 the open, plain manner he believes it in and 

 the candid, as well as intelligent manner in 

 which he treats every matter of this kind on 

 which he has written) is, I think, of much con- 

 sequence, and I should presume must neces- 

 sarily weigh much with the jury, may have ac- 

 cess into court; I mean Mr. Marshall, whose 

 'Rural Economy of Gloucester,' never that I ob- 

 served, found admittance, or was taken the 

 smallest notice of, m your occasional review- 

 ing of agricultural books m the Annals. 



"Whereas, Mr. Culley's book on live stock 

 stands forth very conspicuously in them, and 

 is ushered in with such flattering marks of ap- 

 probation, and so many very high compliments, 

 as most certainly add much more weight to his 

 evidence with the jury, than (with submission) 

 it seems to me to deserve, and if admitted by 

 them as recommended by you, would, indeed, 

 completely upset the cause of the Herefords as 

 a breed; for he makes the cattle a strange 

 hodge-podge of Welch and some illegitimate, 

 that he represents wandering about some two 

 or three English counties, and the sheep only a 

 degeneracy from the breed, which, in most re- 

 spects, I cannot consider as other than one of 

 the worst in the kingdom. 



HOLMER CHURCHYARD, NEAR HEREFORD, WHERE 

 JOHN HEWER IS BURIED. 



"As Mr. Culley has brought so strong a 

 charge against the Herefordshire breed of cat- 

 tle and sheep, I will beg he' may be confronted 

 in your court with Mr. Marshall, evidence for 

 the defendant, and that they may be placed in 

 manner and form as ■understated : 



Mr. Culley's book on Live 

 Stock. (1794). Page 21. 

 Mentioning the number of 

 different breeds of cattle, 

 and naming fixed breeds 

 with intent afterwards, as 

 he says, to point out the 



Mr. Marshall, in Vol. 11 

 of his Rural Economv of 

 Gloucestershire (lJ8S-i798). 

 Page 226, and between that 

 and page 231: "The Here- 

 fordshire breed of cattle, 

 taking it all in all, may. 



