Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

SHORT-HORNS. 117
•white color is very evident ; it came from the continent to England
with the short-horns themselves. Bailey; in his Survey of Durham,
(1810,) says that " about seventy years since, the colors of the cattle
of Mr. Milbank and Mr. Croft, were red and white, and white with
a little red about the neck, or roan. This information was commucated
by Mr. Thomas Corner, now near ninety years of age ; and
Mr. George Culley says that he has repeatedly heard his father
state the same particulars." This refers to the period prior to 1740.
Now, at this period, 1740, there were no wild cattle except in Chillingham
Park, Northumberland, Craven Park, Yorkshire, and Chatelheraut
Park, Lanarkshire, Scotland. Mr. Berry fixes the period
of 1740 as the time at about which the improvements by supposed
crossing were made in the short-horns. Then the persons making
the cross must have gone to one of these parks for the means. What
is the character of these cattle? Culley ia 1785 described them
thus :— " Their color is invariably a creamy white, muzzle black, the
whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside,
from the tips downward, red, horns white with black tips, very fine
and bent upward ; some - of the bulls have a thin- upright mane
about an inch and a half or two inches long." Such they are now,
and a personal inspection of them authorizes the statement- Mr.
Culley omitted to say that they have & dull ferocious eye, encircled by
a black ring. If this was the cross which gave the white color to
short-horns, it would as certainly have given the black nose, the black
tipped horn, and the dull ferocious eye with its black rim. Was a
short-hom of known purity, of white color, with .these characters, ever
seen ? The internal evidence is then against this cross having been
made. But the thought of this cross is of recent origin, not dating
back farther than thirty years ; and is only a supposition at best.
The white color then is original
from the white wild breed.
with the short-horns, and came not
3. It is not true that C. Colling exclusively improved the short-
horns, or bred betier ones than he originally obtained to breed from.
Mr. Berry in both his histories gives no one credit for improvement
in the short-horns but to Charles Colling. Except with Mr. Berry,
it has always been conceded that his brother Robert Celling was
quite as good a breeder as Charles. They commenced their breeding
together, got cows from the same sources in several instances,
and interchanged bulls throughout their joint career. If a, preference
was given to either, it would seem to have been rather to
Robert than Charles. Three of their contemporaries, who were fa-
miliar withi;heir cattle, and two of them their intimate personal
friends, and, from capacity and circumstances, the best of judges, are
quoted.
Mr. Bailey, in his Survey of Durham, says, " Messrs. Collings' have
and bull calves at £100i
frequently sold cows and heifers for JE100 ;