Robert Bakewell. 
11 
declared, must find the best “ machine ” for turning the direct 
products of the land into products of higher money value as 
food for man. He scouted the old notion that the blood must 
be constantly varied by the mixing of different breeds, and 
challenged the world to show him a herd of cattle or a flock of 
sheep of high credit, bred on “ the old system ” for great bone, 
by the crossing of breeds, or from ever-varied blood. In his 
own herd and flock he showed, with natural feelings of pride 
and self-gratulation, the results of breeding according to “ the 
new system,” which differed from the old mainly upon those two 
points — small versus large bone, and permissible in-breeding 
versus perpetual crossing with strange breeds or strange 
families. In these two points we have the heart and marrow 
of his practice as a breeder, and upon these questions he was 
ever ready to maintain his position in friendly discourse. 
Biographical faithfulness obliges us to consider the evil as 
well as the good associated with the name of Bakewell by 
writers whose own names are respected, and whose opinions 
and works are recognised as authoritative. Lightly-written 
detraction we may promptly dismiss. We read : — 
The mystery with which he [Bakewell] is well known to have carried 
on every part of his business and the various means which he employed to 
mislead the public induce me not to give that weight to his assertions 
which I should do to his real opinion could it have been ascertained. 1 
The words here reprinted are those of Sir John Sebright, in 
his letter on breeding, quoted by the Rev. Henry Berry in the 
first letter of his series upon the state of some of the improved 
breeds ; and they are introduced by Mr. Berry, with the 
comment that they would show why he had preferred to look to 
Bakewell’s practice rather than to what was said to have been 
his declaration. By the doubt thus cast upon Mr. Bakewell’s 
word, Mr. Berry saws off the bough upon which he sits, and 
falls with it. He bases his argument upon the breeding of 
animals as declared by Mr. Bakewell, and calls that “ Bakewell’s 
practice.” Having thus laboured to prove his own foundation 
false, he proceeds to show that Bakewell’s system was not one 
of close and exclusive in-breeding, as was commonly supposed, 
but that it was a system of breeding mostly within his own 
herd and flock, occasionally from closely-related animals, and 
occasionally, also, from unrelated animals. His analysis is 
careful, and his reasoning upon it sound. The unsoundness is 
1 British Farmer's Magazine , 1827, Vol. I. p. 290. 
