450 



Farming of Herefordshire, 



and hitherto paid the whole of his attention to the male. This 

 defect is likely to be gradually remedied, owing to the premiums 

 given by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and similar 

 institutions offering rewards, that induce breeders to emulate each 

 other in rearing superior female stock ; for it cannot be doubted 

 that, other things being equal, a well-proportioned roomy cow is 

 better calculated to rear superior cattle, both male and female, 

 than one of delicate character and indifferent form. 



The old Herefords are said to have been brown, or reddish 

 brown, and it is only within the last eighty or ninety years that 

 it has been the fashion to breed for white faces. The history of 

 the introduction of the latter we are assured arose as follows : — 

 the gentleman who furnished the statement says that he was in- 

 formed by Mr. P. Tully that the introduction of the white- 

 marked cattle was accidental, and occurred in the stock of one of 

 that gentleman's ancestors, who lived at Huntingdon, in Holmer, 

 and in the following manner : — " That about the middle of the 

 last century the cowman came to the house, announcing, as a 

 remarkable fact, that the favourite cow had produced a white- 

 faced bull calf. This had never been known to have occurred 

 before; and, as a curiosity, it was agreed that the animal should 

 be kept and reared as a future sire. Such, in a few words, is 

 the origin of a fact that has since prevailed through the county, 

 for the progeny of this very bull became celebrated for white 

 faces." 



The gentleman who kindly furnished this information states — 

 " That it ought never to be forgotten that our county breed might 

 have remained for years localised if it had not been for Mr. 

 Westcar, who, from 1779 to 1819, never omitted visiting the 

 Hereford October fair, and making purchases ; and who induced 

 the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Manchester, Lord Talbot, 

 and other noblemen, to adopt the same plan." 



History relates that Robert Fitzhammon, the usurper of the 

 Lordship of Glamorgan, in the reign of William Rufus, was also 

 Lord of Asterville in Normandy, where a breed of red cattle is 

 still found ; also, that Sir Richard de Grenaville, one of the 

 twelve knights who took possession of the Lordship of Neath in 

 Glamorgan, was lord of the manor and castle of Bideford, on the 

 northern coast of Devon. By either, or both these means, a red 

 stock of cattle was probably introduced into Wales, and so into 

 Hereford. The river Wye, which almost bisects the county, was 

 appointed the boundary of the two counties by Athelstane in 

 939. The colours of the then prevailing cattle in Whales is indi- 

 cated in the laws of Howell the Good, in which compensation 

 for injuries done to the princes of Aber — Ffraw in North Wales 

 and Dinevaur in South Wales — was fixed at 100 idiite cows ivitk 



