hole
century. It was George Culley's opinion that they came from Holland,
because few were found except along the eastern coast; he also knew
farmers who went over to Holland to buy bulls.[742]

Be this as it may, it was the cattle of the Teeswater district in
Durham that the Collings improved, and they are still called Durhams
in many parts. The work of the Collings[743] was carried on by Thomas
Booth, who farmed his own estate of Killerby in Yorkshire, where he
turned his attention to Shorthorns about 1790, and by 1814 he was as
well known as the Collings. He improved the Shorthorns by reducing the
bone, especially the length and coarseness of the legs, the too
prominent hips, and the heavy shoulder bones. In 1819 he removed to
Warlaby, and died there in 1835, having given up the Killerby estate
to his son John, who with his brother Richard ably sustained their
father's reputation. 'Booth strains' equally with 'Bates strains', the
results of the work of Bates of Kirkleavington, whose cattle we have
seen at the Oxford Show in 1839, and whose herd was dispersed in 1850,
have been the foundation of many famous herds, and can be traced in
many a pedigree animal of to-day.

The palmy days of the Shorthorns were the 'seventies' of the last
century, when they made fabulous prices. At the great sale at New York
Mills, in 1873, eleven females of the Duchess tribe averaged L4,522
14s. 2d., and one cow sold for L8,458 6s. 8d. In 1877 Mr. Loder bought
Third Duchess of Hillhurst for 4,100 guineas; in 1876 Lord Bective
gave 4,300 guineas for Fifth Duchess of Hillhurst, then 16 months old;
and in 1875 the bull Duke of Connaught sold for 4,500 guineas. It was
not likely that with the advent of bad times these prices would
continue, and nothing like them in the Shorthorn world has occurred
since.

_Herefords._[744]

Herefordshire cattle have long been famous as one of the finest
breeds in the world. Marshall, writing in 1788, does not hesitate to
say, 'The Herefordshire breed of cattle, taking it all in all, may
without risque be deemed the first breed of cattle in the land.'
Their origin has been accounted for in various ways. Some say they
were originally brown or reddish-brown from Normandy or Devon, others
that they came from Wales, while it is recorded that Lord Scudamore
in the latter half of the seventeenth century introduced red cows
with white faces from Flanders. However, they do not emerge from
obscurity until about