r grounds were stocked with
creatures that would disgrace the meanest lands in the kingdom.' Yet
in April, 1786, yearling wethers of the new breed were sold for 28s.
while those of the old were 16s.

The cattle which he set to work to improve were the famous old longhorn
breed, the prevailing breed of the Midlands, which had already been
considerably improved by Webster of Canley in Warwickshire, and
others, especially in Lancashire and the north. The kind of cattle
esteemed hitherto had been 'the large, long-bodied, big-boned, coarse,
flat-sided kind, and often lyery or black-fleshed.'[486] He founded
his herd upon two heifers of Webster's and a bull from Westmoreland,
and from these bred all his cattle. The celebrated bull 'Twopenny' was
a son of the Westmoreland bull and one of these heifers, who came to
be celebrated in agricultural history as 'Old Comely', for she was
slaughtered at the age of twenty-six. He bred his cattle so that they
produced an enormous amount of fat, as hitherto there had been a
difficulty in producing animals to fatten readily; but this he pushed
to too great an extreme, so that there has been a reaction. The
following is a description of a six-year-old bull, got by 'Twopenny'
out of a Canley cow: 'His head, chest, and neck remarkably fine and
clean; his chest extraordinarily deep; his brisket bearing down to his
knees; his chine thin, loin narrow at the chine, but remarkably wide
at the hips. Quarters long, round bones snug, but thighs rather full
and remarkably let down. The carcase throughout, chine excepted,
large, roomy, deep, and well spread.'[487] The new longhorn, however
good for the grazier, was not a good milker. Bakewell was a great
believer in straw as a food, and strongly objected to having it
trodden into manure; his beasts were largely fed on it, in such small
quantities that they greedily ate what was before them and wasted
little. His activity was not confined to the breeding of cattle and
sheep, for he also produced a breed of black horses, thick and short
in the body, with very short legs and very powerful, two ploughing 4
acres a day, a statement which seems much exaggerated; and was famous
for his skill in irrigating meadows, by which he could cut grass four
times a year. He was a firm believer in the wisdom of treating stock
gently and kindly, and his sheep were kept as clean as racehorses. A
visitor to Dishley saw a bull of huge proportions, with enormous
horns, led a