I must first apologize for the speed with which this paper has had to be written. I returned from the United States seven days ago and in that time have had to collect my thoughts, scattered to no small degree by a passage which I am sure the censor will have no objection to me describing as rough in the extreme.

Some of the views that I shall express are influenced, naturally, by what I have seen in America. In that country there are initiative, scope and financial resources for breeding experiments with farm animals which, outside of Russia, are not rivalled anywhere in the world. Constant attention to the progress of these long-term breeding experiments will be necessary and the need of the stimulating and thought-provoking effect of similar work in this country, preferably in conjunction with the Dominions, is obvious.

To-day we are considering the possibilities of improvement for beef production, and it may be useful at the outset to examine briefly the methods which were successfully employed by some of the great improvers of the past.

In Bakewell's time, 1726–1795, the cattle of the English Midlands were descended from every sort which had come to Britain, except that there had apparently been little mixing with the Scandinavian hornless cattle. Hornless cattle were still confined mainly to coastal areas. The colours and colour patterns varied greatly, and some cattle were the full size of the Dutch, while others were much smaller. Some had short horns ; others had the long wavy horns which had come in with the Roman cattle, so they were generally called Longhorns. It is perhaps worth recalling that the cattle of those days were a sort of non-specialized general purpose, or actually triple purpose. The bigger beasts had been valued for draft, the cows for milk, and the carcasses of both draft-bullocks and cows were ultimately of value for beef. Incidentally, there is little doubt that the Dutch cows were the best milkers. The breeds which became the Shorthorn were dual purpose, but were bred for a long period for beef (from the 1790's to the 1870's).

Though this paper is on the subject of Dual Purpose Cattle it is in no sense a defence of them, not because I am not a devout believer in them myself, but because I am certain that before a learned body such as this they need no defence. Still less is it necessary for me to prove to you that such cattle really exist, though even this has been questioned. But though I do not think it necessary to defend them, I should like first of all to say something about their place in the general economy of our English farming. (I say English advisedly, for there have never been many dual purpose cattle in Scotland, perhaps because the conditions are not suitable.)

It is a fact often overlooked that only a small proportion of our milk producing farmers are dairy farmers in the true sense of the term. A dairy farmer is surely one who draws the major part of his farm income, if not the whole of it, from his dairy herd. In other words, he is a specialist. If this definition of a dairy farmer is accepted then I submit that dairy farmers form a small minority of those farmers who keep milch cattle, and by all means let them keep pure dairy breeds.