A MAJOR milestone of the agricultural revolution is in danger of being overlooked in this year of anniversaries. In 1822, George Coates of Carlton, near Pontefract, Yorkshire, published the world's first herd book of pedigree cattle, and the shorthorn, arguably the most globally influential breed of cattle, was formally born.
Ten years earlier, a pioneering group of North Country farmers, mostly from Co Durham, had met at Wynyard, home of Sir Henry Vane Tempest, to decide on a project to register the best of the 'improved Durham breed. They were undoubtedly influenced by the publishing of the General Stud Book for Thoroughbreds in 1791, which was having a transformational effect on horse breeding.
Present were four of the fathers of modern cattle breeding: brothers Charles and Robert Colling, Thomas Bates, and John Booth. The Collings had visited the great experimental breeder of the day, Robert Bakewell at Dishley, Leicestershire, to learn how he improved his longhorn cattle. And it was Charles Colling of Ketton, near Darlington, who in 1796 bred the famous Durham Ox that still stares at us from pub signs and prints. It weighed 220 stone and was borne around the country in a special carriage to be exhibited to a fascinated public.
It took Coates a decade to traverse the dales gathering information. He would be observed riding a grey horse from farm to farm, attending auctions and fairs, assembling family trees of red, white, and roan cattle, selecting the best, and rejecting any that did not meet the desired standards. He did an excellent job; his book formed the bedrock of the breed, which spread rapidly across the New World.
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