Volume 1

Cassell's popular natural history.

Date:
[1865-1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cassell's popular natural history. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    708/824 (page 270)
    yielded to a middle, or short-horned' race; and even in Leicestershire, the stronghold of the Disliley stock, few are now to be seen. In Cheshire, also, which till recently retained a long-horned breed, derived chiefly from the old Lancashire and new Dishley stocks, the Durliam, or short-horned race, too, made decided inroads, bi.it with doubtful advantage as respects the quality of the cheese for which that county is celebrated. Among the long-horns may be reckoned the old Shropshire breed, a large- boned, showy race, well fitted for the dairy. This breed is now seldom seen, from having been crossed with advantage by the short-horned Holderness. Though the short-horns have superseded the long- horns in most parts of Staffordshire, the latter still continue to maintain their ground in the north of that county, and more particularly along the banks of the Dove and Trent, close to the borders of Derbyshire. Between the long-liorned and short-horned breeds of our cattle intervenes a race termed middle- horns, represented by the North Devonshire, Somersetshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Sussex cattle. The Devonshire breed is ol great antiquity, and lias been long celebrated for beauty. Like most of our other breeds, it has within the last seventy or eighty years become improved, and has, perhaps, now attained to its perfection. The head of the Devon ox is small, but broad across the forehead, and narrow at the muzzle; the horns have a graceful curve upwards; the chest is deep, and the back straight. The cow is small, compared with the bull. To the grazier this breed is of great importance, few oxen rivalling the Devonshire in dispo- sition to fatten, and in the quality of the flesh. For the dairy, however, this breed is inferior to many as respects quantity of milk, but not quality, for it yields more than an average proportion of cream and butter. Some farmers, however, have found the North Devons to yield a large produce of milk, contrary to the common opinion; much, probably, depends on pasturage. In Somersetshire the Devon breed prevails, or at least the original breed has been greatly crossed by the Devon, of which it presents most of the excellencies. They are valuable for “ the pail, the plough, and grazing.” The tract of country between Bridgewater and Cross produces cheese of well- known goodness; the best Cheddar cheese is made either in that tract or in the marshes around Glastonbury. The Herefordshire improved breed, -with white faces, is valuable as fattening rapidly, and that on inferior fare; the flesh is fine-grained, and highly prized in the market; the cows, how- ever, yield but little milk. The Gloucestershire breed is of mixed origin, composed of an old race of Welsh descent, as is supposed, and of various others, and among them the Alderney. The rich vale of Berkeley produces the finest Gloucester cheese. In Sussex the breed of cattle closely resembles that of Devonshire; according to judges, it is intennediate between the Devon and the Hereford, having the activity of the first, the strength of the second, with the propensity to fatten, and the beautiful fine-grained flesh of both. Its colour is deep chestnut-red, or blood-bay; deviation from these colours indicates a cross, as is the case with the Devon and the Hereford. The Sussex cow is very inferior to the ox, and, moreover, does not answer for the dairy. The milk is good, but of trifling quantity. Wales furnished a black mountain bullock, called a runt, which still appears in considerable numbers in the markets of the western and southern grazing districts. Perhaps the improvement that lias been made of late years in this race, by the infusion of West Highland blood, can hardly be called a cross. Scotland gave us the unquestionable West Highlander, whose head quarters arc now fixed in Argyleshire and West Perth, and somewhat more equivocal Galloway; perhaps even the rough east country stot, from Aberdeenshire and its associate counties, may claim some toms standi in this enume- ration. In Ireland we trace no distinctive breed. The distinction of the Irish ox and heifer was, that they were the worst-shaped and worst-fleshed animals which ventured to appear in an English market. “ Good things scarce ; plenty of Irish,” became an almost proverbial description of a cattle fair. The same system of haphazard breeding, which overran a large portion of England and Scotland, prevailed universally in Ireland. The bovine race were endowed with a marvellous fecundity, but circumstances of penury, hardship, and neglect made the Irish ox the most degraded of oxen. It seems that there is still neither a race nor a breed of cattle in Ireland. We hear, indeed, of Kerry cows, but we know not how they can be distinguished from any other mongrel. The improvement in Irish cattle, it is believed, began by the introduction of long-horned bulls from the neighbourhood of