The Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 413 
and sometimes, in winter, cut straw with malt combs ; and on the 
other hand the horses share with them the permanent pasture. 
The calculation is 1^ cow to the acre in summer. Sheep are 
thick on the ground. The flock numbers on an average about 
1500, but this number of course varies. In the spring the 
number is increased by about 600 lambs ; then when the annual 
ram-letting comes, about 180 are publicly disposed of the first 
day, and there is a good deal of private business besides ; there 
is also a continuous private trade, and sheep are exported to 
almost every part of the world. Thus the births, sales, lettings, 
and return of rams from hire, make an ever-fluctuating number. 
The herd of Shorthorns, established about thirty years ago, 
and numbering at the time of my last visit, in the early 
summer of this year, between 90 and 100 animals (about 80 
females and 15 bulls), is treated much the same as the flock, 
that is to say, as a part of the produce of the farm which 
must make rent and profit. The principal return from the 
Shorthorns is derived from the sale of bulls, for which there is 
large foreign and colonial as well as British demand, and occa- 
sionally by the sale of surplus females. In order to keep up 
the demand for West Dereham bulls, for home or exportation, 
it is necessary, as also with the sheep, to make the personal 
properties of the animals the great aim in breeding. By long 
experience Mr. Aylmer is made fully aware of the importance 
of having the best blood ; and by the same experience he is 
also taught that without discrimination in its use the best blood 
may soon yield but poor results ; the ground laboriously gained 
by selection may easily be lost by neglect of selection ; and the 
inherited impetus towards improvement, given by careful culti- 
vation, may be destroyed by bad management. The main 
desiderata are — beef and its economical production ; constitu- 
tion — healthy, hardy, and robust ; early maturity ; and milk, 
abundant and rich. Beef, and the frame for beef, take pre- 
cedence of milk, but milk is accounted a very desirable and a 
very possible accompaniment of the largest inclination to make 
beef, and of the frame best fitted to carry beef. Good hair and 
skin must be included ; indeed they really are included in the 
quality of hardiness, for a sleek, thin-skinned cow, short and 
poor in hair, can never be a hardy cow ; and the West Dereham 
cattle, in fact, have thick, mossy, close-set hair during the winter 
months. I desire to set forth these facts at the outset, not that 
the properties described are peculiar to West Dereham, but 
in order to show the bearing of the management, as it is 
specially designed to maintain the properties to which I refer. 
The calf at birth is allowed to remain with the dam, at least 
in the same box ; but there is in the corner a little pen for the 
