Agriculture in Encjland. 



17 



essential element of farmino-, that we have hitherto passed by, — 

 the animals which^ while they embellish and enliven rural scenery, 

 are indispensable to the fruitfulness of the soil. It is a subject 

 which the Eng-lish agriculturist may enter upon with satisfaction. 

 There seems indeed to be in the people of this country a peculiar 

 disposition and talent for encouraging the finest animal forms, and 

 producing, by careful attention to the selection of the parents, new 

 families, in which are perpetuated, by descent, useful and sym- 

 metrical excellence. It is not only the English race-horse, im- 

 proved from the Arab and Barb, that is eagerly purchased and 

 exported to every civilised country, but the Durham bull (like 

 him too supposed to be descended from a foreign ancestor, derived 

 in this case from Holland), the new Leicester sheep, and even the 

 Berkshire hog, are the acknowledged sources from which other 

 nations seek to enrich and refine the blood of their several live- 

 stock. National gratitude requires that, whenever the new Leices- 

 ter sheep is mentioned, the name of Mr. Bakewell, of Dishley, 

 by whom it was produced, about a century since, from unknown 

 parents, should not be forgotten ; nor that of Mr. Colling, in con- 

 nexion with our beautiful short-horns. This indeed has been the 

 popular branch of English farming, and among its zealous patrons 

 may be named the late and present Dukes of Bedford, the Duke 

 of Richmond, the Marquis of Exeter, Lord Leicester, and Lord 

 Spencer. Such indeed is the pleasure of seeing the form of the 

 sire reproduced or excelled in the offspring (and the coins of the 

 Sicilian Greeks show how fine is the form of the bull), that there 

 is some danger lest the end pursued should be forgotten in the 

 means of attaining it. Not that it can be necessary in an Agri- 

 cultural Journal to vindicate our annual shows of fat cattle, since, 

 although those cattle may be more fat than the ordinary market 

 requires, the power of reaching that excessive size is the only test 

 by which the capacity for acquiring useful marketable condition, 

 at the cheapest expense of food and at the earliest age, can be 

 tried under the encom-agement of public emulation and competi- 

 tion. That object has been also practically attained to a high de- 

 gree. The saving effected in the cost of production, through the 

 early maturity of the new Leicester sheep, or of the cross between 

 the new Leicester and Cotswold, has been calculated, by a prac- 

 tical farmer in Gloucestershire, at nearly 20 per cent. ; that is to 

 say, it would have cost about one quarter of the outlay more to 

 supply the present quantity of mutton consumed in this country 

 under the old system than by the new. This may be taken as a 

 moderate estimate, so far as the new Leicester blood and its pro- 

 pensity to early fatness has hitherto extended. It may be worth 

 the inquiry how far the South Down race has been improved in 

 VOL. I. c 



