418 
The Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 
already noted with those practised in some parts of the south of 
Ireland. The line from Waterford in the south-east to Tralee 
in the south-west passes within easy distances from the properties 
of Mr. Gumbleton of Glanatore, on the borders of the counties 
of Waterford and Cork, Mr. Downing of Ashfield, and Mr. 
Welsted of Ballyvvater, in the latter county ; and near Tralee 
is Ardfert Abbey, the seat of Mr. Crosbie, in the county Kerry. 
All these are homes of very well-known Shorthorn herds. Mr. 
Gumbleton has been for some years a successful exhibitor at 
the leading shows in Ireland, and has taken the honours also of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the Bath and 
West of England Society. There are scarcely, however, in the 
management of the Glanatore herd any special details to bring 
into very prominent notice. The cows, generally, are in healthy 
breeding condition, not overfed ; some, indeed, decidedly poor ; 
and even those which had been exhibited, by no means too fat 
for breeding. They were out at grass with the rest. The 
calves, I thought, might be better kept, with advantage. They 
were all in low condition. 
I am not advocating the forcing of young stock intended for 
breeding. If it is necessary to force cattle for exhibition, let 
the forced animals be sacrifices, to demonstrate the capabilities 
of their kindred. Surely one may question the wisdom of 
using too freely the actual descendants of animals fed to gross 
obesity, if it is desirable to keep up the constitution of the Short- 
horn, and a fair proportion of lean flesh to the fat. Artificially 
produced characteristics become hereditary ; and for this 
very reason I would advocate the liberal rearing of calves. 
Cattle reared in poverty for several generations degenerate 
to the unimproved type. There is the skin, and if you put 
your hand upon it you are uncomfortably conscious of the near- 
ness of the bones. Cattle, on the other hand, in each successive 
generation " overwhelmed with prosperity " from their birth, 
have the skin lined only by that which would melt away before 
the fire. 
Mr. Gumbleton's views on Shorthorn management are so 
forcibly expressed in the Preface to his printed private Cata- 
logue of 1878, and there is so much in his remarks worth 
considering, that a passage or two may be usefully extracted. 
His great object, he explains, was to find out whether valuable 
Shorthorns, if treated as ordinary cattle, would prove their 
superiority. " Was this breeding a rich man's fancy, or would 
it pay the tenant-farmer? Glanatore is, for the greater part, 
poor, light land, at a considerable elevation ; the cows get no 
artificial feeding (corn and cake) after they are one year old. 
Though they do not look so blooming as might please some 
