The Warty flattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
49 
their milking qualities with such great rapidity iu a more widely 
extended country. 
Most persons are familiar with the great improvements, origi- 
nated in the last century and continued in the present, which 
gave us our existing breeds. Reference should also be made to 
the displacement of old, and sometimes of improved, breeds by 
others superior to them, which has occasionally happened. Mr. 
Youatt mentions that the Longhorn cattle in their native home, 
improved as they had been by Bakewell, were " suddenly swept 
away as if by some murderous pestilence," by the rivalry of 
Sliorthorns. The same catastrophe has happened to the older 
breeds of pigs since the introduction of foreign varieties which 
ripen earlier than the old sorts. 
It may be safely asserted that our modern breeds of cattle 
have, to a great extent, won their position by their early matu- 
rity as compared with the older breeds. Certain breeds are no 
doubt adapted to particular districts, like the Herefords, which 
are par excellence a pastoral breed of cattle. Herefords claim as 
long a pedigree among improved cattle as Shorthorns. The 
Hereford Herd-book was not produced till 1845, but the breed 
had been most carefully selected and cultivated for more than a 
hundred years. Notwithstanding their extensive use in America, 
they are a more local breed than the Shorthorn. Still they 
equal them in early maturity, and although they are generally of 
smaller size, they reach as great a weight at as early an age 
when the system of high feeding fiom birth is applied to them. 
The same early maturity is found in the Devons, whether 
they be of the lesser type of beautiful red cattle which originated 
among the hills of No'th Devon, or the heavier breed found on 
better land in Somerset and parts of South Devon. Their 
Herd-book elates from 1851 ; but the record of their improved 
breeding runs back more than a century, and early maturity has 
been a special aim of their breeders during the whole of that 
period. Every breed has its special aptitudes. Two years 
since I made a tour among the Devons, visiting the late Lord 
Falmouth's famous herd at Tregothnan, Cornwall, Mr. Skinner's 
at Bishop's Lydeard, and Mr. Bickle's Bradstone Hall herd of 160 
head near Tavistock. The breed is a hardy one, and there is no 
cosseting and caudling of cattle in the common practice of 
Devonshire. The young breeding animals are often wintered 
out of doors in small, sheltered pastures provided with open sheds 
to which they can retire at will. The Devons are specially 
adapted for pastures of less luxuriant character than some other 
breeds require. They will thrive on land of moderate quality 
where some of the heavier breeds would hardly gain flesh with- 
VOL. I ,T. S. — 1 3E 
