| beasts which are everywhere to be seen. 
CROSSING. 
one breed some good properties of the males of 
another breed. 
No intelligent traveller can look at the miser- 
able flocks which inhabit a very large proportion 
of the pastures of Great Britain, without feeling 
astonished that the necessity of improvement 
seems to be so limitedly recognised, and the de- 
sire for it so limitedly kindled. “Any one who 
takes a leisurely survey of the breeds in Scotland 
through the midland and northern counties,” re- 
marks Mr. Dickson, “must be satisfied that many 
of them are inferior to the best kinds, and that 
to cultivate them is just to bestow labour on 
that which is unprofitable. It is surely not suf- 
ficient for a farmer that he has merely a lot of 
cattle so called, to trample down his straw and 
eat his turnips, regardless of the return in flesh 
which these cattle may give for the meat which 
they consume, and the care which they require. 
Look around the country, and see the numbers 
of sharp-backed, flat-ribbed, and coarse-boned 
Such 
cattle have very appropriately been termed ‘ra- 
zor-backs.’ These razor-backs, after they have 
devoured more good food than the better sorts, 
present nothing but masses of coarse beef; there 
is not a joint of meat in them to suit the cus- 
tomers of respectable butchers.” 
Many persons, however, have contended that 
the wise course is gradually to exterminate all 
bad breeds, by gradually supplanting them with 
imported individuals and droves of better breeds. 
But even supposing that such individuals and 
droves could be obtained at prices sufficiently 
moderate to prevent loss, and from pastures and 
climates sufficiently similar to prevent danger, 
they obviously cannot be procured in sufficient 
numbers to effect the desired object without 
enormous postponement of time, and consequent 
loss and other evils from delay. If no more were 
attempted than merely to substitute the bad 
breeds of the plains by imported short-horns, not 
only many generations of cattle but many gener- 
ations of men would require to pass away before 
the measure could be accomplished. Such prime 
breeds as possess adaptation for removal to other 
districts than those in which they have arisen 
and become established, are as yet far from being 
numerous; and while they need to maintain and 
somewhat multiply their numbers in their native 
districts, they can produce but a comparatively 
small surplus for general dispersion throughout 
the country. But the object could speedily be 
accomplished by crossing: a few well-bred short- 
horn-bulls could be promptly introduced to every 
little lowland region inhabited by bad breeds; 
many hundreds of offspring would, in a very short 
time, arise from each bull; a few more well-bred 
bulls could, after the lapse of two or three years, be 
introduced for the sake of the rising stock ; the 
bullocks of the cross-bred offspring could regu- 
larly be fattened and sold off, leaving the whole 
field to the influence and possession of the new- 
901 
comers; and thus by several properly-timed im- 
portations of merely a few bulls, a meliorating 
revolution would speedily be achieved in the 
blood, form, habits, and ‘ points ’-of all the cattle 
in the district. 
But all crossing must be conducted with due 
regard, both to the properties of the males em- 
ployed in it, and to the adaptations of the off 
spring to the situation in which it is to be reared 
and kept; else the result may not only be a total 
and humiliating failure of all improvement, but 
the production of a deformed, unthriving, wretch- 
ed race of mongrels, to the full as unprofitable 
and unsightly as the notorious ‘razor-backs.’ 
The kinds and variations of regard to be paid to 
the properties of the males were discussed in 
our article on BreEepiNne, and need not be farther 
noticed; but the kinds and variations of regard 
to be paid to the adaptations of the offspring, 
have not yet been touched by us, and are very 
generally overlooked or at least not duly consid- 
ered by farmers, and therefore will form a fit 
subject of special and somewhat extended re- 
mark, 
The pastures of Britain may, in a general view, 
and for the purpose of illustration, be distributed 
into the three great classes of mountainous, hilly, 
and champaign, each class producing its peculiar 
herbage, enjoying its peculiar climate, and pos- 
sessing its peculiar adaptations. Mountainous 
pastures, for the most part, lie on non-fossilifer- 
ous rocks, or even on the hardest, most crystal- 
line, and least disintegrable of these rocks; they 
produce a heathy, coarse, and scanty herbage, 
and rarely possess any spots of grazing ground in 
good feeding condition for a longer period than 
a few months in the warmest part of the year; 
they are much colder than the plains, and are 
prevailingly bleak and shelterless, and lift their 
bare summits and shoulders into fierce abrasion 
with every pelting storm and careering tempest ; 
and these pastures may, on a moment’s consider- 
ation, be seen to be totally unsuitable for any 
breed of animals which either require abundant 
feeding, or have a fastidious taste, or do not pos- 
sess great hardiness of constitution. Hven sup- 
pose a native race to be feeding and thriving on 
them, and to possess perfect adaptation to their 
herbage and climate, any crossing with it which 
should produce an offspring quite as hardy as it- 
self, but considerably larger in size, would result 
in serious disappointment. “ Where a particular 
race of animals has continued for centuries,” says 
Sir John Sinclair, “it may be presumed that 
their constitution is adapted to the soil and cli- 
mate. Any attempt, therefore, to increase the 
size of a native race of animals, without improv- 
ing their food, by which their size is regulated, 
is a fruitless effort to counteract the laws of na- 
ture. In proportion to their increase of size by 
crossing, they become worse in form, less hardy, 
and more liable to disease. In every case, where 
the enlargement of the carcase is the object, the 
