394 The Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 
a wedge, with the dewlap for an apex. You may even venture 
upon a big girth and ample crops, and you may grow admi- 
rable rounds of beef ; but let beef be the first consideration, and 
milk claim due attention when the frame for beef and the 
generous disposition to thrive are secured. 
I have alluded to the intimate association of the subjects of 
breeding and management, and the difficulty of keeping clear 
of the former while handling the latter subject. But it may be 
truly said, moreover, that the best part of breeding is neither 
more nor less than management. If we consider the earliest im- 
provements of breed, the question arises, how were they effected ? 
Simply by management. There is really no mystery in what is 
called " blood." Good land, liberal keep, stimulated the diges- 
tive powers to greater action, resulting in larger and better 
nourished frames and larger capabilities of sustaining the off"- 
spring. These propensities, cherished through successive gene- 
rations, became hereditary, and selection did the rest. By the 
same processes we might in course of time raise highly improved 
breeds from the very commonest stock in the country ; but we 
have, in the breeds already improved, a long start of any one 
who would begin de novo, and we find it therefore convenient to 
make use of the work already done, the good materials plenti- 
fully at hand. 
Several of the farms upon which Shorthorns have been suc- 
cessfully kept in Northumberland lie at heights of five or six 
hundred feet above the sea-level, in districts where the average 
rainfall of the year is fully 27 inches. I have selected as a 
notable illustration of management in this county the herd 
of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, where the 
height of the land occupied by the Shorthorns varies (upon the 
whole a fair medium, not in any case extremely high or low) 
from the " haugh " down by the river Alne to the high land of 
Bassington, about 200 feet above the sea, an airy and a healthy 
place, with an average rainfall of about 25 inches. The Alnwick 
Park herd, kept with a view to practical utility, has nevertheless 
turned out winners at the exhibitions of the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England and other leading associations ; and as an 
inspection of the cattle on the farms enabled me to observe that 
the few show animals are no more than fair average specimens 
of a good working herd, I was glad to have the opportunity of 
obtaining from Mr. Patten the following particulars of his 
management. 
The principal object is to develop the growth of beef rather 
than milk-production ; yet many of the cows are excellent 
milkers, rearing their own calves ; and often, during the height 
