VIII
THE MELTING-POT
Having now identified the races of cattle that at one time or another have arrived in Britain and partaken[1] in the production of the breeds we now possess, we have next to inquire how each race modified or was modified by the races that arrived before or behind it. It has already been stated, that the great agricultural awakening commenced in the seventeenth century. From that time forward the desire for improvement grew keener and keener, and although, even at the present day, that desire is happily still strong, it might be said quite fairly, considering all the circumstances, that it reached its height about the junction of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. One of its many forms was to improve the livestock of the country. Men travelled long distances in order to procure cattle which they thought better than those of their own district, and as the cattle imported from the Low
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- ↑ A few black-and-white cattle and some other cattle—the Channel Islanders, for instance—have come in, but they have taken no part in producing our present breeds.
