THK SHORT-HORNS. 141 



writers on agriculture and cattle, who paid particular attention 

 to these subjects, that it was from these foreign cattle, imported 

 at that early day from the neighboring continent, that the present 

 race of short-horns are descended, and that for some centuries 

 they inhabited that part of England only. The earliest accounts 

 we have seen, first found them there. Holderness, a district of 

 Yorkshire, was said to number these cattle in considerable herds. 

 They possessed a great aptitude to fatten, in addition to their 

 milking qualities, yet their flesh was coarse, accompanied by a 

 large amount of oflfal. That they possessed valuable character- 

 istics in their high and broad carcasses, and contained within 

 themselves the element of refinement, when brought within the 

 conditions of shelter, good fare, and painstaking, we may well 

 conjecture. The people of those days were rude and unculti- 

 vated, and the cattle must have been rude also. Oftentimes 

 pinched with poverty and scant fare, subject to the storms and 

 blasts of an inclement winter climate, unsheltered, probably, in 

 all seasons, except as the woods or hollows of the land could 

 protect them, the worst points of their anatomy took precedence 

 in looks, and they were but a sorry spectacle to the eye of an 

 accurate judge, or breeder. 



Following down to near the middle of the last century, we 

 find that some of the authors named speak of these cattle, on 

 the banks of the river Tees, (a stream dividing the counties of 

 York and Durham,) existing in a high degree of improvement, 

 and superior to almost any others which they had seen. As we 

 have before remarked, it is not surprising that they were found 

 in these counties only, as every district in England had its own 

 local breeds to which their people were partial, and cattle were 

 not interchanged as now, except for the purposes of feeding, and 

 going to London, or other large sea coast markets, for consump- 

 tion. No doubt, in the agricultural progress of the country, 

 these cattle had received considerable attention, and were much 

 improved in their forms, flesh, and general appearance by their 



