James Wilson

“ But from whatever cause this happened, it is a fact, that as soon as we cross the Yorkshire Wolds, northward, we find this breed alter for the better; they become finer in the bone, in the carcase, and, in a great measure, free from that disagreeable lyery sort which has brought such an odium upon this, perhaps, most valuable breed. When you reach that fine country on both sides of the River Tees, you are then in the centre of this breed of cattle; a country that has been long eminent for good stock of all kinds ”

“ Secondly, because we find very few of these cattle any where in this island, except along the eastern coast, facing those parts of the Continent where the same kind of cattle are still bred, and reaching from the southern extremity of Lincolnshire to the borders of Scotland. The longhorns and these have met upon the mountains which separate Yorkshire from Lancashire, etc., and, by crossing, have produced a mixed breed called the Half longhorns; a very heavy, strong, and not unuseful kind of cattle; but we do not find that the one kind have spread further West, or the others further East. ”

“ Thirty-three years later Mortimer [7] tells us where these Lincolnshire cattle had come from, and also that cattle of the same kind had been imported to Kent: "But the best sort of Cows for the Pail, only that they are tender and need very good keeping, are the long-legg'd, shorthorn'd Cow of the Dutch-breed, which is to be had in some places of Lincolnshire, but most used in Kent." ”

“ In Britain there were incentives to the importation of foreign stock that had never existed before. During the sixteenth century, through political and other interests, England was drawn further and further away from France and Spain, and closer and closer to Holland and Northern Germany. ”

“ Thus, many British farmers were free to take advantage of the example and advance of the Low Countries. The change could not come all at once, however, but it was begun about 1644 through the introduction of turnips and red clover to Kent by Sir Richard Weston, who had been educated in the Low Countries, and who, in later life, passed some years of exile there ”

“ Besides, it was in Lincolnshire, to which Dutchmen came to drain the fens, that the Dutch cattle are first reported to have gained a footing. In 1683 Gervaise Markham writes [6] : "As touching the right Breed of Kine through our Nation, it generally affordeth very good ones, yet some Countries do far exceed other Countries, as Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, for black Kine ”