The evolution of British cattle and the fashioning of breeds/The Dutch Invasion

by James Wilson

VI

THE DUTCH INVASION

Although it was not till the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that what we might call the "Dutch Invasion" took place, the tracks of the cattle brought in from the Low Countries at that time are only a little clearer than those of the Scandinavian cattle that came across the North Sea seven or eight hundred years before. One reason for this is that there was no great human migration to correspond; while another is that, misled by the great change the Dutch cattle induced upon the cattle of Britain, we look for the importations of enormous numbers: forgetting that such are not required if the imported animals and their progeny were thought much more worthy than those whose territory they invaded. The recent increase of Shorthorns and Herefords outside Britain might be quoted as cases in point.

In Britain there were incentives to the importation of foreign stock that had never existed before. During the sixteenth century, through political and other interests, England was drawn further and further away from France and Spain, and closer and closer to Holland and Northern Germany. Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558; and the Netherlands revolted against Spain in 1572.

"Volunteers stole across the channel in increasing numbers to the aid of the Dutch, till the five hundred Englishmen who fought in the beginning of the struggle rose to a brigade of five thousand, whose bravery turned one of the most critical battles of the war."^[1] In 1585 "Lord Leicester was hurried to the Flemish Coast with 8000 men."^[2]

Englishmen renewed their acquaintance with Holland and Western Germany during the Thirty Years' War, begun in 1618; while during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, persecuted Flemings and Huguenots came flocking to Britain.

Before their revolt, the Low Countries had long been in advance of the rest of Europe in agriculture and industry and, after the emancipation of Holland, this advance was far more than maintained, not only in Holland, but also in the neighbouring States still under the rule of Spain.

Dutch and other foreign agricultural books were translated into English, and English writers described continental crops and farming methods. Leonard Mascal, who is asserted to have introduced pippin apples and carp, and who had travelled on the Continent, published^[3] "A Booke of the Arte and manner, how to plant and graffe all sortes of Trees by one of the Abbey of St. Vincent in France, with an addition of certain Dutch practices," in 1572, "The Husbandrie, ordering and Government of Poultrie," in 1581, and "The Government of Cattel," in 1596, Heresbachius's "Foure Books of Husbandry, Newely Englished, and increased by Barnabe Googe," was published in 1577; Sir Hugh Plat's "Jewel House of Art and Nature," in which a great knowledge of the Low Countries is shown, was published in 1594; Bishop Dubravius's (of Olmutz) "New Booke of Good Husbandry," was published in English in 1599; Sir Cornelius Vermuiden, a Dutchman, published his "Discourses touching the Drayning of the Great Fenns," in 1642; and Hartlib published Sir Richard Weston's "Discourse of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders," in 1645, "The Legacy; or, an Enlargement of the Discourse," in 1651, and the "Appendix to the Legacy," in the same year.

Thus, through books and returning soldiers and travellers, a knowledge of the agriculture of the Low Countries was filtering through to English farmers just at the time when it was likely to have fullest effect. The feudal system, and the cast-iron method of agriculture by which it was accompanied, had already begun to break down. The village, with its three fields and its threecourse rotation of wheat the first year; beans, peas, or other grain the second; and fallow the third, still prevailed, but rents were now usually paid in money instead of in service and kind. Landowners had become business men rather than feudal chiefs, and, in consequence, much of the land that had formerly been forest and waste was parcelled out in large blocks to be farmed by the landowners themselves or rented to farmers. Fields were enclosed both for tillage and grazing, and the economy of this system over the old "mingle-mangle" of the village system, both as regards crops and stock, was soon realised. Formerly, no man could adopt new crops or a new rotation, because his fellow-villagers and the three-field system were both against it; formerly, no man could improve his stock unless the rest of the villagers did the same, because the male breeding animals were used in common, and the female stock must all be grazed together. Now the "champaign" farmer could grow the crops that brought most profit, adopt an independent rotation, and select and improve his live stock as he had a mind.

Thus, many British farmers were free to take advantage of the example and advance of the Low Countries. The change could not come all at once, however, but it was begun about 1644 through the introduction of turnips and red clover to Kent by Sir Richard Weston, who had been educated in the Low Countries, and who, in later life, passed some years of exile there;^[4] and it was accelerated by the work of Jethro Tull and Lord Townshend early in the following century. And just as better crops and better farming were introduced by Sir Richard Weston and others, so also were better stock imported by proprietors and farmers who wished to improve their own and the cattle of the country.

It will be noticed that, so far, the original British cattle and all the intruding races were whole coloured: the Celtic cattle were black, the Roman white, the Anglo-Saxon red, and the Scandinavian light dun. The cattle now to be imported were chiefly of broken colours. The date of their first arrival cannot now be fixed, but the will of John Percy, of Haram, near Helmsley, in Yorkshire, suggests that it may have been as early as 1400: " To my son John I bequeath two stots with short horns; to John Webster a small horned stot; to John Belby a cow with a white leske; to my son a heifer with a white head."^[5]

But, if John Percy's white-headed heifer was descended from imported cattle, the importations must either have been very few, or in poor demand, for there is no indication that the Yorkshire cattle, unless those in the parks and their tame cousins in the possession of one or two families, were otherwise than black till three centuries later. Besides, it was in Lincolnshire, to which Dutchmen came to drain the fens, that the Dutch cattle are first reported to have gained a footing. In 1683 Gervaise Markham writes^[6]: "As touching the right Breed of Kine through our Nation, it generally affordeth very good ones, yet some Countries do far exceed other Countries, as Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, for black Kine; Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, and some part of Wiltshire for red Kine; and Lincolnshire for pide Kine."

Thirty-three years later Mortimer^[7] tells us where these Lincolnshire cattle had come from, and also that cattle of the same kind had been imported to Kent: "But the best sort of Cows for the Pail, only that they are tender and need very good keeping, are the long-legg'd, shorthorn'd Cow of the Dutch-breed, which is to be had in some places of Lincolnshire, but most used in Kent."

Still another forty years later, Hale^[8] refers to the same race of cattle several times, and shows that the native and imported races had already begun to mix: "The Yorkshire oxen are, in general, black all over, and they are very large, firm, and valuable Kind in every respect. There are none that exceed them for Labour and few feed like them. The Oxen of Staffordshire, and many of the neighbouring Counties, are also of this kind. The Oxen of Lincolnshire are in general red-and-white: they are very bulky, and equal to any in Value. The Oxen of Somersetshire, and some of the adjoining Counties, are naturally red. They are also a very fine, large, and valuable Breed. … The reader is not to suppose from what is here said, that all the Oxen of Yorkshire are black, all those of Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, red; or all the Lincolnshire oxen pyed. These are the genuine and proper breed of each of those several Counties, but the graziers have mixed them more or less in each County."

Again, "The Welch and Scotch Cows will do upon the poorest Pastures. They will suit some who cannot rise to the better kinds … but the fine Kinds are the Dutch and Alderney cows, these are very like one another in Shape, and in their Goodness, but the Alderney Cow is preferable, because she is hardier.

"The fine Dutch Breed have long legs, short Horns, and a full Body. They are to be had in Kent and Sussex, and some other Places where they are still carefully kept up without Mixture in Colour, and where they will yield two gallons at a milking; but in order to this they require great Attendance, and the best of Food. The Alderney cow is like the Dutch in the Shortness of her Horns, but she is somewhat stronger built, and is not quite so tender."

One more extract will bring us down to comparatively recent times, and will show how the Dutch cattle continued to be imported, and how their territory in the east of England extended. It is from "Observations on Live Stock," first published in 1786, by George Culley, a Durham man, who was first a pupil with Bakewell and afterwards a farmer in Northumberland.

Of "the shorthorned or Dutch kind," Culley writes: "Their colours are much varied; but the generality are red-and-white mixed, or what the breeders call flecked; and, when properly mixed, is a very agreeable colour.

"There are many reasons for thinking this breed has been imported from the Continent—First, because they are still in many places called the Dutch breed. Secondly, because we find very few of these cattle any where in this island, except along the eastern coast, facing those parts of the Continent where the same kind of cattle are still bred, and reaching from the southern extremity of Lincolnshire to the borders of Scotland. The longhorns and these have met upon the mountains which separate Yorkshire from Lancashire, etc., and, by crossing, have produced a mixed breed called the Half longhorns; a very heavy, strong, and not unuseful kind of cattle; but we do not find that the one kind have spread further West, or the others further East. But, thirdly, I remember^[9] a gentleman of the county of Durham (Mr. Michael Dobinson), who went in the early part of his life into Holland in order to buy bulls; those he bought were of much service in improving the breed; and this Mr. Dobinson and neighbours, even in my day, were noted for having the best breed of short-horned cattle, and sold their bulls and heifers for great prices.

"But afterwards, some other persons of less knowledge going over, brought home some bulls, that in all probability introduced along that coast the disagreeable kind of cattle, well known to breeders adjoining the river Tees, by the appellation of lyery, or double-lyered; that is, blackfleshed. …

"The breed, like most others, is better and worse in different districts; not so much, I apprehend, from the good or bad quality of the land, as from a want of attention in the breeders. In Lincolnshire (which is the farthest south that we meet with any number of this kind of cattle) they are, in general, more subject to Iyer or black flesh, than those bred farther North; and in that rich part of Yorkshire called Holderness, they are much the same as those south of the H umber, of which we have been speaking. It is probable that they had either stuck more to the lyery black-beefed kind, than their more northern neighbours, at that unfortunate period when they were imported from the Continent, or that the latter had seen their error. But from whatever cause this happened, it is a fact, that as soon as we cross the Yorkshire Wolds, northward, we find this breed alter for the better; they become finer in the bone, in the carcase, and, in a great measure, free from that disagreeable lyery sort which has brought such an odium upon this, perhaps, most valuable breed. When you reach that fine country on both sides of the River Tees, you are then in the centre of this breed of cattle; a country that has been long eminent for good stock of all kinds; the country where the Dobinsons first raised a spirit of emulation amongst the breeders, which is still kept up by Mr. Hill, the Mr. Charges, the Mr. Collins, Mr. Maynard, etc."^[10]

It is unnecessary to make more or later quotations to show that these east-country English cattle came from the opposite shores of the German Ocean. Documentary evidence as to their progress farther westward is unusually scanty. Indeed, were it not that the cattle themselves carried evidence of their origin wherever they went, their westward march in England might still remain not proven. But, early in the eighteenth century, characters appear among the cattle in some of the midland counties and in the west and north-west which were previously unknown in those parts of England, but were well known in Holland and Flanders. These are increase in size and the markings which are still peculiar to the Herefords and the Longhorns. These two breeds and the Shorthorns were almost the only large cattle in Britain till the nineteenth century was well through.

Hale tells us that, in his day, 1757, the graziers had already mixed the breeds "more or less in each country," while Culley s remark that "a very heavy strong" breed had been raised "upon the mountains which separate Yorkshire from Lancashire" by crossing the Yorkshire and Lancashire cattle is in itself evidence that the large West European cattle had reached Lancashire long before Culley's time. Still better evidence is to be found in some of the old "Agricultural Surveys," in which the authors, not knowing of the banishment of the older cattle, speak of these great cattle that were Flemish or Dutch in appearance, size, and markings as "native," "indigenous," and so on. In Pitt's "Survey of Staffordshire," for instance, some enormous cattle with white faces and white backs and under-lines, are figured as old Staffordshire cattle. But perhaps the most valuable statement of all is that to be found about Lord Scudamore in Cooke's continuation to Duncumb's "Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford." Scudamore, whose family had been famous for generations for their horsemanship and breed of horses,^[11] was a friend of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and, when the latter was assassinated in 1628, retired to his estate at Holme Lacy and devoted himself to agricultural improvements. His retirement was twice interrupted, first in 1634 by his becoming Ambassador in Paris for four years, and again in 1643 by his being imprisoned for three years for rebellion. He is credited with having introduced the red-streak apple, and so turned Hereford into a county of orchards and cider; and also with having introduced the cattle from which the present Herefords are descended. Cooke's statement is as follows: "Francis Hereford, son of Roger Hereford, a merchant of Dunkirk, married in the Netherlands and left several children. Roger Hereford, a younger son, also a merchant at Dunkirk, becoming a naturalised subject, was on three occasions chief magistrate of that city. These gentlemen are traditionally credited with having procured in Flanders, for Lord Scudamore, the cattle from which the celebrated herds of the county are descended."^[12] It is a pity this statement conveys no information which would indicate how far Lord Scudamore's cattle were responsible for the markings of the modern Herefords, or for those of the finch-backed cattle that were once so numerous in their neighbourhood. It would also be interesting to know the route by which Lord Scudamore's cattle were sent from Flanders.

1. J. R. Green's "Short History of the English People," illustrated edition, p. 828.
2. Ibid., p. 832.
3. McDonald's "Agricultural Writers," 1908, p. 42.
4. "Dictionary of National Biography."
5. Bates's "Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns," 1897, p. 23.
6. "The English House-Wife."
7. "The Whole Art of Husbandry," 1716, p. 227.
8. "Compleat Body of Husbandry," vol. iii. p. 35.
9. Culley was born in 1730. See Sinclair's "History of Shorthorn Cattle," p. 17.
10. Quoted from the second edition, 1794, p. 40.
11. See "Dictionary of National Biography."
12. Cooke, p. 73.