52 The Early Fattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
not surpass, any other breed in the economy of meat-production 
at an early age. Steers and heifers alike are constantly 
fattened up to 100 to 120 stone of 81b. at two years old. 
There is no breed that assimilates so readily with others, and 
that is, therefore, so useful in crossing for the improvement of 
inferior stock. And the crosses by a Shorthorn bull, especially 
out of the lai-ge varieties of polled cattle, have had greater 
weights recorded of them than the offspring of pure-bred stock. 
In the earliest examples of early fattening in Sussex which 
came under my observation, the yards and barns and sheds of 
my friends were kept well rilled with relays of stock, sold at 
eighteen months, or less, and purchased as calves. Most of the 
breeds were represented, including Sussex from around home, 
Herefords from the western dairy districts, and Shorthorus from 
the Brighton dairies and elsewhere. No decided preference 
was felt for either of the breeds ; but the Shorthorns greatly 
outnumbered the others, and I suppose this would be the case 
throughout England, except in special districts. 
At the same time that Bakewell was improving the breed of 
Longhorn cattle, he was also engaged in founding the Dishley 
breed of Leicester sheep ; and most readers of this kind of history 
will remember that one of the visitors to Dishley was John Ell- 
mau, who had already commenced the development of the poor 
little Southdowns — with their small carcass, flat ribs, and light 
fleece, and nothing to admire but a good leg of mutton — into 
the most famous of the short-woolled sheep. The improvement 
of sheep proceeded continuously, and was, of course, conducted 
on the same lines as in the case of cattle. The breeds of sheep 
must have been very numerous, since most of the great heaths 
and commons, or other characteristic tracts, fertile or barren, 
possessed distinct breeds. Mr. Youatt says quaintly, in his work 
on sheep : " The disgraceful breed of the Kentmore sheep, and 
all their crosses, are now supplanted by a better animal in the 
county of Cumberland ; " and in the next sentence he mentions 
that the original long-woolled sheep of the lower grounds of 
Westmoreland had been replaced by Leicesters and Cheviots 
and their crosses. The Teeswater sheep — a tall, clumsy, polled 
animal, proceeding from the same stock as the old Lincolnshires 
— had been crossed with Dishley-Leicesters ; and the breeders 
of the same sheep, now known by the name of Wensleydale, are 
at present establishing a flock-book. 
Our subject possesses a history which may perhaps assist 
breeders in shaping the future. There is no doubt that the 
absorption into the modern races of at least a dozen breeds of 
sheep, north and south, and sometimes the complete extinction 
