Cattle 1853 - Lewis Family Farm

THE LEICESTER. LONG-HORNS. 89
of the' middle-horns. It did more ; it improved, and that to a
material degree, the whole breed of long-horns. The Lancashire,'the
Derbyshire, the Staffordshire cattle became, and still are, an improved
race ; they got rid of a portion of their coarse bone. They began to
, gain their flesh and fat on the more profitable points, they acquired a
somewhat earlier maturity, and, the process of improvement not being
carried too far, the very dairy-cattle obtained a' disposition to convert
their aliment into milk while milk was wanted, arid, after that, to use
the same nutriment- for the accumulation of flesh and fat. The midland
counties will always have occasion to associate a feeling of
respect and gratitude with the name of Bakewell.
H£Sllf(t
NEW LEICESTER LONG-HORN COW.
Mr. Marshall thus describes the improved Leicesters in his own
time, which was that of Bakewell, Princep, and Fowler.
" The forend long ; but light to a degree of elegance. The neck
thin, the chap clean, the head fine, but long and tapering.
" The eye large, -bright and prominent.
" The horns vary with the sex, &o. Those of bulls are comparatively
sljort, from fifteen inches to two feet ; those of the few oxen that
have been reared of this breed are extremely large, being from two
.and a half to three and a half feet long ;
those of the cows nearly as,
long, but much finer, tapering to delicately fine points. Most of them