108 
Coleman’s European agriculture. 
land, as early as 1784, 26 years before the improved 
Galloway cross was sold; and it is well known, 
both in England and in this country, that the ani¬ 
mals entirely free from the Galloway strain, still 
bring the highest prices and are most eagerly sought 
for by judicious breeders. To establish one point, 
Mr. Coleman quotes from an article on Short-Horn 
cattle by Mr. Wright, published in the last number 
of the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal. It is a 
great pity he did not read this excellent article with 
more attention and profit. By recurring to it again, 
he will find that Mr. Wright incidentally claims 
great antiquity of blood for the Short-Horns ; also 
this emphatic passage :— 
“ Improvements have often been anxiously sought 
for by crossing with other breeds, and many valua¬ 
ble specimens have been exhibited ; but it may be 
asked, what breed is there that CAN IMPROVE 
the Short-Horn ? I have seen many extraordinary 
animals from the cross with the West Highland 
Scot, but we do not find their offspring uniformly 
improving by each succeeding cross; there is 
GREAT UNCERTAINTY in their progeny. The 
polled or Galloway Scot progresses with less varia¬ 
tion in the produce, and continues to improve by 
subsequent crosses; but neither of them GIVES 
ANYTHING to the Short-Horn, though the Short- 
Horn ADDS MUCH to them. Alloy being once 
introduced into any breed of animals will at certain 
times, and that, too, at very remote periods, show it¬ 
self in their offspring. In a race- horse, how many 
crosses from a cart-mare would it require to produce 
a race of animals able to compete with the original 
thorough-bred one ? And if you chanced to have 
one superior animal of that kind, who would dare to 
venture upon the next produce as being equal to the 
thorough-bred one ?” 
Mr. C. “ The Teeswater or Yorkshire stock are 
a large and coarse boned animal; the object of this 
cross [the Galloway] was to get a smaller bone and 
great compactness.” 
How is it possible that Mr. Coleman can make 
such an assertion, after spending three years in 
England, and still there, or near by ? Let him get 
any respectable authority to assert, if he can, that 
Hubback was a “ large coarse boned animal or 
that any of the Duchess family, or the Red Rose, 
the Daisy, the Princess, the Lady Maynard, or the 
Haughton tribe were ; or the herd of Sir Henry Vane 
Tempest, or Mr. Mason’s, or, indeed, other good 
Short-Horn stock that had not yet been touched 
by the “improved” infusion of Galloway blood. 
The residue of the long paragraph from which 
we have made the two short quotations above, is a 
mixture of the true and false (we do not use the 
word false here in an invidious sense), jumbled up 
in a way which shows that Mr. Coleman does not 
understand the subject upon which he is writing, 
and which, for his own reputation and the public 
good, he had better never have meddled with. 
Mr. C. “ It will, I think, not be denied, that 
they [the Short-Horns] are great consumers. An 
intelligent herdsman, who had been accustomed to 
the feeding of fattening animals for eighteen years, 
and, with respect to whose judgment, I know of no 
private interest to affect it, gave it to me, as his de¬ 
cided experience, that the Short-Horns require a 
third more food than the Herefords. This judgment 
must go for what it is worth.” 
That the Short-Horns generally are great con¬ 
sumers for the weight of flesh they carry and the 
quantity of milk they give, we deny most empha¬ 
tically. There are many of this breed which we 
will engage to turn out on as “ short a pasture,” 
or tie up to as “ scanty a manger,” as Mr. Cole¬ 
man could desire ; and he may bring any cattle of 
nearly equal size, of any breed he pleases, to com¬ 
pete with them ; and we predict the said Short-Horns 
will thrive and look as well as those of Mr. Cole¬ 
man’s choice. As for the opinion he quotes of the 
Short-Horns “ requiring a third more food than the 
Herefords,” it must indeed “ go for what it is worth.” 
If Mr. Coleman had a true idea of animal 
structure and the power of its respective parts, he 
would not have repeated so one-sided a statement. 
A very fine Hereford by the side of a very bad 
Short-Horn, would, most ‘probably, consume one- 
third less, and the case would he reversed were 
the former a bad animal and the latter a fine one. 
Other things being equal, there is little or no dif¬ 
ference in the consumption of food, for the rela¬ 
tive amount of beef and milk made from it, with 
these justly rival breeds, or, indeed, with any other 
well bred cattle. 
Mr. C. “ The finest herd of Short-Horns which 
met my observation—though it must be remem¬ 
bered that, if I have seen many, they are but few 
compared with the whole number to be seen—I 
found in Lincolnshire, in the possession of one of 
the best farmers in England, a tenant of Lord Yar¬ 
borough. They were not in the Herd Book, but 
had been in possession of the family more than 
fifty years. A superior lot of cows, in appearance 
and condition, I never saw, nor expect to see ; but 
they were not distinguished for their milking pro¬ 
perties.” 
We also passed through Lincolnshire two years 
previous to Mr. Coleman, and saw something of 
the herds of cattle there, and also made diligent 
inquiry for them ; yet beg, with great deference to 
his superior judgment, to say, that we were not 
quite so fortunate as himself, for we neither saw 
nor even heard of any such fine animals, “ not in 
the Herd Book.” But, it seems from Mr. Coleman, 
that the “ finest herd” are “ not distinguished for 
their milking properties.” Then the more is the 
pity ; for the word “ finest” we understand him to 
use in the sense of choicest or best. If so, we can 
only add, that no respectable breeder in America 
would class his cows as “ choicest” or “ best,” 
which, in addition to fine fattening properties, did 
not add that of deep milking ; and so we understood 
this matter among the good breeders when in Eng¬ 
land. But, perhaps, things have changed since we 
were there. 
Mr. C. “ The property to take on fat is con¬ 
sidered inconsistent with that of large secretions 
of milk. This is not without exceptions within 
my own knowledge, but is generally true.” 
We deny that the above assertion is “ generally 
true.” Many of the best milkers fat as kindly as 
any other animals in existence; and if proper 
pains be taken in breeding cows, this will be the 
case in nineteen out of every twenty, or, perhaps, 
ninety-nine out of every hundred. Any one who 
