THE HEREFORDSHIRE BREED. 
PLATE XYII. 
COW, the property of the Right Honourable the Earl of Talbot, descended from the Stock of the 
late Benjamin Tomkins, Esq. of King’s Pion, Herefordshire. 
Extending along the base of the mountains of Wales, is a tract of fertile country calculated to increase the size, and so to 
modify the characters, of the cattle which it maintains. This effect is seen in the fine race produced in the Yale of Glamorgan, 
in the mixed races which occupy the lower parts of Montgomeryshire, and yet more in those of the richly cultivated county of 
Hereford. If we suppose that at any time a common race of cattle occupied the higher country and the lower, we must believe 
that its characters would gradually diverge as the animals became naturalized in mountains of natural herbage, or became the 
inhabitants of a cultivated country capable of yielding artificial food. Herefordshire was of old a part of the country of the 
Cambro-Britons, but at a very early period fell under the dominion of the Anglo-Saxons. Yet although it has thus for a vast 
period been connected with Wales only by contiguity of situation, its cattle retain the traces of a common ancestry. They have 
that orange-yellow colour of the skin which distinguished the Pembrokes and the Devons, and that medium length of horns which 
separates these breeds and their varieties from the race termed Long-horned. It cannot be supposed that they have been kept free 
from intermixture with the Long-horned and other varieties of the lower country, but they may be referred to that group of breeds 
which comprehends the Pembroke, the Devon, the Sussex, and the Glamorgan, and which some writers have proposed to term 
Middle-horned, a designation which distinguishes them from the Long-horned on the one hand, and the Short-horned on the 
other, but which does not sufficiently separate them from other very different varieties, as those which occupied many of the former 
forests of the country, and even from the older Yorkshire Short-horns. Of the changes which the Herefords have, until a period 
comparatively recent, undergone, from mixture or otherwise, we know nothing from any authentic records. When we first obtain 
accounts of them, they appear to have been of a good size, but of mixed characters. The Dairy was at a former period largely 
pursued in Herefordshire, the effect of which must have been to collect together animals of mixed descent, and only agreeing in 
the common character of yielding much milk. Many of them were black, many red, and so far were they from exhibiting the 
common characters of a breed or family, that a skilful observer, who saw them late in the last century, believed them at first to 
be a mixture of Welsh Cattle and Long-horns, although it appears, from the remains of the older race which yet exist, that the 
greater part of them consisted of a race of red cattle, which, in colour, and in the upward curvature of the horns, resembled the 
coarser kinds of Devons. 
But whatever were the characters of the former cattle of Herefordshire, the breed, as it now exists, owes all its reputation to 
modern changes. About the year 1769 the late Mr Benjamin Tomkins began a system of breeding, which ultimately exercised 
a great influence on the stock of this part of England. It appears that size, and adaptation to the dairy and the purposes of 
labour, were then the properties chiefly sought for by the breeders of Herefordshire. Mr Tomkins, when a young man, was in 
the employment of an individual, afterwards his father-in-law, and had the especial charge of the dairy. Two cows had been 
brought to this dairy, supposed to have been purchased at the fair of Kington, on the confines of Wales. Tomkins remarked 
the extraordinary tendency of these animals to become fat. On his marriage he acquired these two cows, and commenced 
breeding from them on his own account. The one, with more of white, he called Pigeon, and the other, of a rich red colour, 
with a spotted face, he called Mottle; and it is remarkable that the marking of the two cows may be distinguished in their 
descendants at the present day. Mr Tomkins appears to have selected good cows where he could obtain them in the district, 
but to have reared his bulls from his own stock, although, in the earlier stage of his improvements, he sometimes made use 
of other bulls when they suited his purpose. After a time, however, he abandoned this practice, and confined himself in breed¬ 
ing to his own stock. It thus appears that the principle of his system was selection of the most suitable individuals for breed¬ 
ing, and that having produced, by this mean, animals of the properties required, he confined himself to his own herd. Having 
arrived at the improvement sought for, he communicated to the individuals, by intermixture with one another, that uniformity and 
permanence of character which constitutes a Breed. In this latter respect, however, he was not so successful as Bakewell, and 
many of the Herefords deviate considerably from a common type. Tomkins, indeed, had what he termed his different lines of 
stock, as his Mottle line, and his Pigeon or Silver line, from which we are merely to infer that his animals had not been so 
amalgamated as to acquire a permanent class of common characters. Tomkins continued his improvements during a long life. He 
was a person of very retired and unassuming habits, seldom, if ever, showing his cattle from home, or concerning himself much 
about what was passing beyond his own circle. In this respect his conduct was the reverse of that of his distinguished contem¬ 
porary Bakewell, who took every opportunity to derive advantage from his stock, and to spread the reputation of it throughout 
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