46 AMEKICAN CATTLE. 



cannot resort to a better source for the purposes we seek, a 

 description of several of their most approved breeds is necessary, 

 that their apphcation to our uses may be understood, and on 

 due consideration, adopted. 



Great Britain is an old country. England — all, probably, 

 of it that was worth the conquest — was invaded and possessed 

 by the Romans before the Christian Era. It was held by them 

 so long as they had the power, and until the unconquered spirit 

 of the ancient Britons, after near four centuries of Roman rule, 

 drove the more civilized invaders out and re-established their 

 own authority. Barbarians, when the Romans invaded them, 

 comparative barbarism still held sway over the people when the 

 Romans went out. The adjoining and even less civilized people 

 of Scotland, were hardly worth a conquest by the Romans, had 

 they sought it. They held their own mountain fastnesses and 

 barren islands, and only suffered by the occasional inroads of 

 the neighboring continental invaders, who long afterwards rav- 

 aged England. With the conquering Saxons, in the fifth cen- 

 tury, came into England some better dawnings of civilization 

 and progress in- the arts of life ; but with the invasion of the 

 Normans in the eleventh century, under the first William, began 

 the progress which has since advanced England, and afterward 

 Scotland, to a higher civilization, and their agriculture to a 

 more perfect condition than that of any other country in Europe. 



Cattle, always numerous in England, furnished the people with 

 food in their flesh, and partial clothing in their skins. They 

 were exported to countries abroad, with various other articles of 

 commerce, under the dominion of the Romans. While' the 

 Danes were ravaging England with varied success under the 

 Saxon rule, cattle were brought in from the neighboring conti- 

 nent, and also exported from the island. They were kept in 

 such numbers as to be a considerable portion of the wealth of 

 the people, and oxen wore much used for labor. Witli the 



