Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/129

 expositor of his ideas: "The argument held out in its (in-breeding's) favour is, that there can be only one best breed; and if this be crossed, it must necessarily be with an inferior breed; the necessary consequence of which must be an adulteration, not an improvement."

In any case, Bakewell adopted the system of in-breeding, and, looking back, we can now see how it was possible for him to have done what he did. He came upon the scene during the great agricultural transition and near the beginning of the rise in British industry and commerce. Formerly the cow had been valued for her milk, the bullock for its labour, the sheep for its wool, and the horse for its strength and weight in battle. Now the horse is to split into two kinds, one valued for its strength, the other for its speed, and the former is to drive the bullock from the plough to the feeding stall. At the same time, the new agricultural discoveries and the new crops are to allow the bullock to be fattened off at an age at which, in former days, he would have been beginning his career in the plough and the waggon. Now it is not a bullock that will grow for three or four years and remain active and lean for a similar period that is wanted, but one that will fatten quickly and easily at the end of his period of growth. Bakewell saw that a new kind of