Farming of Cumberland. 



249 



The eastern division is particularly indebted to R. Ferguson, 

 Esq., of Harker Lodge, who has for many years spared no ex- 

 pense in the attempt to furnish it with the best blood stallions 

 that could be procured. The Earl of Lonsdale has provided the 

 western division with the Suffolk Punch for improving their 

 breed, and several others have introduced many good horses into 

 the county. Horses are bred on most of the farms of 80 acres or 

 more, for the use of the farm or for sale ; and, where of proper 

 sorts, are profitable. 



Cattle, — The researches of naturalists tend to show that every 

 species of animal in the wild state preserves its own characteristic 

 form and colours, and that it is only when its habits are inter- 

 fered with by domestication, and by the caprice of man, in his 

 attempts to adapt it to his uses, that it loses its original distinctive 

 tints and markings, and acquires new ones : thus nearly all the 

 accounts of the wild breed of cattle in the north of England repre- 

 sent them as having been white, or pale cream-colour approaching 

 to white, with black-tipped ears. Some mention black muzzles, 

 and others speak of red ear-tips and muzzles, varying a little in 

 different and distant localities. The wild breed in Chillingham 

 Park, in the neighbouring count};' of Northumberland, have red 

 ear-tips and black muzzles, their bodies being a pale cream- 

 colour.* Sandford, in his manuscript description of Cumberland, 

 dated 1675, says, around Naworth formerly were " pleasant woods 

 and gardens ; ground full of fallow dear, feeding on all somer 

 tyme ; braue venison pasties, and great store of reed dear on the 

 mountains ; and white wild cattel, with blak ears only, on the 

 moores ; and blak heath-cockes and brone more-cockes, and their 

 pootes," &c. 



The Caledonian Forest! wild cattle are a dun, or rather flea- 

 bitten, white, and have black muzzles and ear-tips, with spotted 

 legs. The Drumlanrig wild breed, now extinct, J had the like 

 markings. The Gisburne Park breed of wild cattle are pure 

 white, with brown or red ears and noses. The two last herds 

 were hornless ; the others have horns of medium length. 



It is not now known if Cumberland anciently possessed a native 

 breed of long-horns having white backs, but on account of the 

 variety of colours and markings they exhibited, the long-horns 

 appear to have been the result of crossing among more than one 

 of the wild breeds ; and it must be evident that wild breeds of 



* There has been a conjecture that the white wild cattle came originally from 

 Italy, where it is said they were at one time used for sacrifice to the celestial 

 heathen gods— the black or dark-coloured to the iufernals. 



t The cattle of the Caledonian Forest are said not to degenerate, though all of 

 the same breed for hundreds of years. 



_ + Two cows and a bull were living in 1821, but the bvill and one of the cows 

 died from the effects of removal in that year. 



S 2 



