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THE DUTCH SUPREMACY
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Wales, excepting, perhaps, in the south, where there may have been some small red cattle of North Devon type. Knowing the superiority of the cattle in England, many owners of land in Ireland sent there for cattle, and Lancashire and the western counties being most convenient for transit, as well, perhaps, as possessing the most superior cattle, were naturally resorted to. Eventually, as in the south of England, the Longhorn overran the most desirable parts of the country, and, at the time of Arthur Young's visit (1776-78) they and their cousins that had been graded up from the original black Celtic stock, and were now for the most part pure Longhorns, were in possession of the great central plain of Ireland, from one side of the country to the other, and of the fertile valleys and smaller plains running into it from both sides: the native cattle having been driven into the higher and less fertile regions to the north and to the south. At the same time considerable numbers of Longhorn cattle were carried elsewhere for colonising purposes. They were carried into Wales, the north of England, Scotland, and even to the Orkney Islands, but in these at that time somewhat backward countries, although they left signs of their visits, they made no great progress.

Hemmed in on the south by the Longhorns, on the west by the Pennine Chain and the