The evolution of British cattle and the fashioning of breeds/Blending and Sorting
XI
BLENDING AND SORTING
The East-country Dutch cattle—the Shorthorns—pursued a course somewhat similar to that of the Longhorns, In the territory they had won, however, they mingled much less with the natives, but rather drove them out before them. As we have already seen, they pressed northwards, and a branch, bending westwards, shared in producing the modern Ayrshire. No doubt, native blood was absorbed here and there, only for its outward tokens to be eliminated again in a few generations.
But in Yorkshire there was a permanent amalgamation from which the modern Shorthorn is descended. Storer[1] mentions a number of herds of domestic white cattle in the north of England, some of which, if not all, were in existence before the Dutch invasion. In the first half of the eighteenth century stock were distributed from at least one of these herds, Studley Royal, near Ripon, which had at that time a high reputation over West Yorkshire and Durham. By uniting with these cattle the Dutch Shorthorns absorbed the white colour of the Roman cattle and along with it the roan, which is a hybrid between the Dutch and Roman colours. About the same time the Shorthorns also absorbed the blood of some of the native black cattle, but the black colour at any rate was soon bred out, while, even to the present day, the blood of Anglo-Saxon red cattle has been frequently absorbed, the colour in this case to be retained.
Having been originally of several types, as Culley told us, and having absorbed this strange blood in England, the Shorthorns also required a Bakewell; and him they found in Charles Colling, who had been a pupil with the great master himself. The following diagrammatic pedigree of Charles Colling's great bull Comet will show how closely he followed Bakewell.
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Here, again, we have a breeder who, like Bakewell, started with the best stock he could find, and, by inbreeding, eliminated the chances of uncertainty in their progeny; and his system, much modified, has been adopted by the leading Shorthorn breeders down to the present day. How much this means to a breed can be inferred from the fact that the blood of the stock of the highest class breeders soon permeates a breed through the demand made upon it for breeding purposes by other breeders. Thus, at the present day there are no Shorthorns which are not descended from Charles Colling's Comet again and again.
Among the Shorthorns, as among the Longhorns, there was first a mingling of races and afterwards a retention of the desirable and an expulsion of the undesirable characters produced by the mixing. All other breeds have gone through the same process of mixing first and purification after, some to a less, others to a greater extent. For instance, the white colour has been expelled from pure-bred Welsh cattle, the hornless character and the light dun colour have been expelled from Somerset and Devon cattle, and while the Norfolks and the Suffolks have amalgamated, the former have given up their horns and the latter their colour; but, if we take a short survey of the history of Aberdeen-Angus cattle we shall see the process from more sides than in any other breed, and at the same time get a glimpse perhaps of what may be possible in the future.
At the present day Aberdeen-Angus cattle are hornless, similar in weight to Shorthorns and Herefords, and black, with occasional white markings upon the back underline. In the stock-breeder's sense of the term the Aberdeen-Angus breed is pure; but the irregular occurrence of white on the underline suggests that from a more stringent point of view the purity is not absolute. For that matter, it is inconceivable that any set of animals of more than one cell—or even of one cell, perhaps—can ever be absolutely pure.
But other irregularities sometimes occur, although with less and less frequency as time goes on. A red calf, a calf with a white spot on its face, another with one or more white flecks on the body, another with "scurs," that is, small epidermal growths attached to the skin and not to the skull, are not entirely unknown. Twenty or thirty years ago such phenomena were more common than now. At that time a calf with a brown stripe down the back and a tan muzzle, another with brindle markings, and another with short horns was not a ferlie—was not a marvel. Sixty or seventy years ago these phenomena were all common, and horned and hornless cattle, many of the former the ancestors of the present-day hornless cattle, competed together for prizes even at the shows of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. A century ago the horned and the hornless grew up side by side not only on neighbouring farms but in the same fields, claiming frequently to be children of the same parents. At the same time, there were colours and markings among them not now seen at all: dun, yellow, "what Youatt called 'silver-coloured yellow,'" and white stripes along the back and belly. Many, too, of both kinds were not much more than half the weight of their present-day descendants.
Still further back—say a hundred and fifty years ago—they were all, or nearly all, of this smaller size; but the horned kind were in the majority in the inland parts, while the hornless kind, which were creeping inwards, prevailed near the coasts. Beyond that we have no direct evidence, but tradition says the inland cattle were originally horned and the maritime cattle hornless. So, do we not eventually reach back to the arrival of the long-headed, high-polled, hornless whity-grey or light dun Scandinavian cattle upon the coasts of Scotland, and are we not reminded of the traditional battles between Danes and natives and between the white Danes and the black Danes in the neighbourhoods of Cruden in Aberdeenshire and Lunan Bay in Forfarshire?
The first crosses between the Scandinavian cattle and the black horned natives were dun hornless masqueraders, which, when they were bred together, produced blacks (25 per cent.), duns (50 per cent.), and light duns (25 per cent.), among each kind of which there were horned catde (25 per cent.), hornless masqueraders (50 per cent.), and hornless cattle (25 per cent.). That is to say, among sixteen cattle—any number might be taken—the chances were that there were 4 blacks (i horned, 2 hornless masqueraders, and i hornless), 8 duns (2 horned, 4 hornless masqueraders, and 2 hornless), and 4 light duns (1 horned, 2 hornless masqueraders, and 1 hornless).
Again, when the first crosses—the dun hornless masqueraders—were bred with the natives, there were produced, blacks (50 per cent.) and duns (50 per cent.), among each kind of which there were horned (50 per cent.) and masquerading cattle (50 per cent.). Thus, if farmers had a predilection for either of the two new productions—the black hornless or the light dun horned—they had merely to keep on breeding from these, and, in time, they would have nothing else. There being no deception about the colours, it is easy to see how the whity-grey or light dun vanished long ago, and the dun lingered on a while longer, while the hornless masqueraders, a gradually decreasing number, kept the horns bobbing up till comparatively recent times.
The blackish-brown cattle, the "foundlings" as we have called them, the date of whose arrival upon the scene we have been unable to fix, produced brindles with both races—dark brindles with the black natives and light brindles with the Scandinavians. Here again, there being no deception, or, at any rate, only a slight one, for dark brindle is sometimes very nearly black, we can understand how, when black became the favoured colour, the brindles and their blackish-brown parent would gradually disappear.
But other races intervened—the Anglo-Saxon red race—whether openly and frankly in earlier days, or, disguised in their partial progeny the Longhorn, early in the eighteenth century; the Longhorns themselves, with their white finch-backs and white underline; and lastly, the Dutch flecked race, first in the guise of Fifeshire cattle,[2] and, later on, as Shorthorns. And these races left their marks, some to be eliminated easily, others with difficulty. When red cattle were bred with blackish-browns and light duns, they produced brindles and yellows, and these, being unwelcome, were bred out quickly; but, when bred with black cattle, they produced black masqueraders. We can thus understand why an occasional red calf turns up. Masqueraders are difficult to deal with, and, when two of them meet, there is one chance in four of their progeny being red, as may be seen from this Mendelian scheme—
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⤨→ may produce , , or .[3]
The white markings of the Longhorn are dominant to black on the same parts of the animal, and, being always visible, were easily eliminated. So far as our present knowledge goes, the white flecks seem to have been recessive characters, which again would account for the difficulty of breeding them out.
But perhaps the most important character which the Aberdeen-Angus cattle received from other races is their size. Crossed again and again by larger breeds, they eventually became as large as the cattle by which they were crossed. Whether the first crosses were intermediate or masquerading hybrids is not absolutely clear, but in any case, the initial crossing and the continued selection of the larger animals for breeding purposes resulted in a small breed being converted into a large one. The following quotation,[4] part of which is irrelevant as regards size but is of supreme interest otherwise, indicates that the crosses between the small breed and the large were intermediate hybrids. It is a communication to the authors of the "History of Polled Aberdeen or Angus Cattle,"[5] from Mr. William Forbes, an Aberdeenshire farmer, whose grandfather was a farmer in Buchan (East Aberdeenshire), and bred polled cattle:—
"The cattle in Buchan about half a century ago and earlier might be said to have consisted of horned and polled black cattle in about equal proportions. The polled cattle were of two classes, one large and another small. I knew the small kind well. They were rather puny creatures, always thin in flesh, and very badly used. They were pre-eminently the crofter's cow, as they were able to live through the winter on the straw of oats and here, and water, if necessary. Of the larger portion of the cattle, about one-half were jet black, and often the whole underline was white. They could not stand starvation so well as the small polls, but with better treatment they gave a heavier yield of milk. A few were of a dull-red colour, but they were not so high in favour as the brindled cattle. The polled cattle were the dairy stock. The butter they produced was very fine in summer and autumn, but hard and white in winter. The establishing of a beef trade with England, and the introduction of Shorthorn bulls and turnip husbandry, opened up a new era for Buchan. The native cattle fattened well, and money was made by doing so. Shorthorn bulls were introduced and put to all kinds of cows. Often when a Shorthorn bull was mated with a small polled cow, the produce was a black poll of the finest character—immensely superior to either of the parents. When a heifer of this stamp was again put to a Shorthorn bull, the result was quite as fine a black poll, of still larger size. If the produce were also a heifer, and mated with a pure Shorthorn bull, the result was still a poll, yet larger in size, but bluish-grey in colour. If a heifer again, and put to a Shorthorn bull, the produce was once more a grey poll, probably lighter in colour. When this form of crossing was continued further. Shorthorn colours appeared, sometimes with scurs, but oftener with the regular short horns of the male parent. I observed this experiment tried in several cases, with exactly the same result. With the larger polls with white underlines, the horns and colour of the Shorthorn bull were earlier transmitted to the produce, generally at the second or third crosses. I therefore look upon the small polls without white spots as the pure original Buchan Humlie."
Thus, with the characters they now possess drawn from several sources, the Aberdeen-Angus cattle have come down to the present day—not, however, without their Bakewell to establish them, and his successors to maintain them in equilibrium.
The Aberdeen- Angus Bakewell was Hugh Watson, the son of farmers and polled cattle breeders on the borders of Forfar and Perth, who, in 1808, at nineteen years of age, got a farm for himself and six of his father's "best and blackest cows, along with a bull, as a nucleus for an Angus doddie herd." Within a month or two he went twenty miles north to Brechin, the great market of those days, and bought "the ten best heifers and the best bull he could procure." And more than half a century later, when his work was done, Hugh Watson's cattle were almost, if not entirely, descended from the cattle he began with in 1808.
How far Watson was driven to the system of in-breeding by force of circumstances, and how far by example, cannot be told; but it must be remembered that, being another unparalleled judge, and having begun his herd with the best he could find, it was afterwards difficult for him to get other cattle as good as his own. It must also be remembered that Charles Colling's Comet was sold for a thousand guineas in the year 1810.
By exhibiting the last three or four generations that led up to Hugh Watson's greatest bull, .png)
Old Jock's pedigree[6]
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(2) Angus is brother to Old Jock.
(3) Victor of Ballindalloch is also descended from Old Jock.
One other Scots breed—the Highlanders—is also of some interest. Its basis was the original black Celtic cattle. The browns or (in Gaelic) donns came in at some time or other, and brindles appeared from the cross. The hornless light dun Scandinavians came in and produced hornless cattle and duns with the black ones, and further brindles with the donns. Subsequently red English—some of them with Longhorn markings—reached the Highlands, and there resulted another brindle with the donns, and a yellow by crossing with the light duns; but the Longhorn markings and the hornlessness got from the Scandinavians have been eliminated. The following diagram will show how the present Highland colours were produced from the original four:—
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- ↑ "Wild White Cattle of Great Britain."
- ↑ There is a probability that these cattle may have absorbed Dutch blood direct from Holland before the Shorthorn invasion.
- ↑ When red cattle were bred with duns, the hybrids of light dun and black, they produced blacks and yellows, thus—
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⤨→ gives (black), and (yellow). - ↑ A part of this communication was quoted in the chapter on the Norse Cattle.
- ↑ Macdonald and Sinclair, published 1883, p. 72.
- ↑ In the "Aberdeen-Angus Herd Book," as to Old Jock's pedigree; but, after considerable inquiry and examination, the above seems to be its last few generations.