CROSSING. 
weight, at the Highland Society’s show at Aber- 
deen in 1834; and he weighed when alive 224 
stones, and when dead 173} stones.—A cross with 
a Fife cow loses the gaunt form of the native 
breed, and has a greatly increased disposition to 
fatten A cross with a West Highland cow, is 
very nearly equal, in both substance and sym- 
metry, to the pure short-horn; yet though ad- 
mirably successful in almost any part of the 
Scottish lowlands, it is ill-suited to the excessive 
wetness of the Hebribes and the Western High- 
lands.—A cross with an Ayrshire cow, in conse- 
quence of the exclusively dairy uses of the Ayr- 
shire breed, is altogether unadvisable—A cross 
with a long-horned Irish cow of any of the mid- 
land or the southern counties, is quickened in 
disposition to fatten, and has its beef of very fine 
quality, and thick upon the sirloin and the back. 
—A bullock from a short-horn bull and a Guern- 
sey cow, and fed on distillery offals, yielded to 
the butcher 104 stones in his four quarters, and 
22 stones of tallow. Mr. Dickson says, “I saw 
him when fat, and he was, without exception, 
the fattest bull I ever handled.”—A heifer from 
| a short-horn bull and an Indian cow was exhibited 
at the Highland Society’s show at Kelso in 1832, 
and was admired by every person for fatness and 
extreme beauty; and her back and sirloins were 
well covered with beef. 
The crossing of native ewes with Leicester 
rams has, for a considerable time past, been 
about as generally practised for the improvement 
of sheep, as the crossing of native cows with 
short-horn bulls for the improvement of cattle; 
and has been conducted with nearly the same 
want of discrimination, yet with much of the 
same preponderance of excellent result. In al- 
most all mild situations, with tolerably good herb- 
age, the progeny of the cross, no matter what 
the breed or variety of ewe, has longer wool, a 
finer skin, a better head, a cleaner bone, a larger 
carcase, and a readier disposition to fatten than 
the native or uncrossed race. Yet not a few in- 
stances of great disaster have happened from the 
folly of crossing black-faced ewes or the hardier 
kind of Cheviot ewes with Leicester rams in 
situations far too cold, coarse, and sterile to suit 
the comparatively tender habits and the consid- 
erably increased size of the offspring; many a 
signal failure has been occasioned by the short- 
sighted or ignorant policy of crossing only once 
or even twice with the Leicester ram, and then 
using the ram of the progeny as a sire; and 
calamitous instances of precisely the opposite 
nature have occurred of continuing the service 
of Leicester rams through so long a series as al- 
most wholly to obliterate the original breed, and 
to establish a race of absolute Leicesters. “‘ Every 
crossing,” remarks Mr. Stephens, “should be pro- 
secuted with caution, because the result may 
overstep the intentions of the breeder. It is 
clear that if the crossed stock is retained as 
females, which, in their turn, are served by high- 
CROSSW ORT. 903 
bred males, the time will arrive when the charac- 
ter of the original stock will be entirely changed, 
and become unsuited to their native climate and 
pasture, and will, in fact, have become the same 
breed as their high-bred sires. It is quite pos- 
sible to originate a race of Leicester sheep any- 
where suited to their nature, by constantly em- | 
ploying a high-bred tup to serve cross-bred gim- 
mers, generation after generation ; and were this 
practice generally adopted, the time would arrive 
when the original breeds which were crossed 
would disappear altogether. Such a result would 
prove injurious to the breeder himself, inasmuch 
as the pasture would be unsuited for the stock 
he had caused to be produced; so that his best 
plan is to preserve the original breeds in the 
higher parts of the country, and take the crosses 
to the low country to be fed off. The temptation 
of larger profits has already caused the Cheviot to 
drive the black-faced breed from the lower pas- 
tures to the highest, while the cross-bred Cheviot 
with the Leicester have descended, on the other 
hand, to the low country, and there have met 
the true-bred Leicester. This result, upon the 
whole, has done good, as it has increased the 
quantity of mutton in the market; and the skil- 
ful pasturage which the hills have received since 
a regular system of breeding has been intro- 
duced, has caused them to yield a larger quantity 
of finer grasses.” 
In conclusion, let it be strongly impressed on 
all improvers of cattle and sheep by crossing, 
that the use of cross-bred bulls or rams, particu- 
larly such as are of merely the first or the second 
generation, is in all respects injudicious, and very 
often exceedingly disastrous. The use of a cross- 
bred bull or ram among even the race to which he 
belongs, or on the farm on which he has been bred, 
may more than counteract all the benefits of the 
original crossing, or may originate a progeny con- 
siderably more defective in aggregate character 
than the uncrossed and unimproved race; and the 
use of a cross-bred bull or ram among a breed of © 
different points and different situation than that 
of his own female ancestry, is simply to produce 
mongrels from a mongrel, to destroy all distinc- 
tions of breed, probably to elicit an assemblage 
of motley and misshapen animals, and certainly 
to enact a broad and grinning burlesque upon 
the whole theory of crossing.—Papers by Mr. Dick- 
son of Edinburgh, Mr. Ferguson of Woodhill, and 
Mr. Hogg of Stobo in Quarterly Journal of Agri- 
culture—Sir John Sinclair's Code of Agriculture. 
—Sproule’s Agriculture—sStephen’s Book of the 
Farm.—Transactions of the Highland Society.— 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng- 
land. 
CROSSWORT,—botanically Cruczanella. <A 
genus of curious, low-growing plants, of the mad- 
der tribe. The maritime and the American spe- 
cies are half-tender, yellow-flowering, evergreen 
undershrubs, of about a foot in height ; and 
seven or eight annual species, and about the 
