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BAKEWELL
It may be doubted whether the idea that their live stock might be improved ever took much hold of British farmers' minds before the arrival of the importations of cattle and other stock from Holland. At any rate it was not the overmastering idea it has since become. For one thing, they knew of nothing either very much better or very much worse than their own, unless, perhaps, on the common frontiers of two races, say the English and the Celtic, or here and there in the north, when the rievers returned from a raid far over the border. It is true that in " Seneschaucie," written not later than the time of Edward the First, it is laid down that the cowherd " must see that he has fine bulls and large and of a good breed pastured with the cows."[1]
It is also true that several English sovereigns took steps to improve the breed of horses, and that Henry the Eighth imposed a fine of forty shillings on "lords, owners, and farmers of all parks and grounds enclosed as is above rehearsed,
- ↑ Walter of Henley's "Husbandry," pub. 1890, p. 113.
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