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Post by cascade on May 21, 2016 17:41:53 GMT
The name "Dexter" is the root cause of the confusion in Dexter Breed history. In the early days, "Dexter" was simply a word for small. So a "Dexter" wasn't a breed, it was just a small Kerry. Did some of those smaller runty Kerry cattle end up in the hands of poor folks? You bet they did, but they weren't yet an isolated breed. They were just the runts of the Kerry breed and would have interbred with larger Kerry. I sell some of my pig runts to poor people at bargain prices. But it was rich people that invented the Dexter breed as breed, in the late 1800's, and it's clear from the breed description that they wanted all Dexters to be short and stocky...
Traditionally, it was Kerry cattle that had some with long legs and some with shorter legs... The Dexter breed was invented to be 100% shorter legged and beefy, according to the 1900 breed description.
If traditionalists go back too far in time, they are just going back to Kerry cattle, some larger and some smaller.
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Post by jamshundred on May 22, 2016 14:33:58 GMT
Kirk, I do not see a "root cause of confusion", or any confusion at all for that matter. I do not think your assumptions are grounded in history. Did you not read the RDS preface I posted? Did you not read the recorded history in the preface and think on it a bit? There are comments as to the small black cattle of Ireland by Young in the late 1700's, by Wilde in the first decade of the 1800's, and they were seemingly alluded to without a breed description or insinuated as Kerry cattle, but between that first decade of the 1800's and the exhibiting of Kerry cattle prior to the 1840's, these little cattle were given their own identity which is recorded in this quote by Professor Low during that exact period of time in history. Professor Low, with no ambiguity whatsoever in describing the formation of the Dexter breed states, " It has been termed the Dexter breed. It as formed by the late Mr. Dexter, agent to Maude Lord Hawarden. This gentleman is said to have produced his curious breed by selection from the best of the mountain cattle of the district". Professor Low states this as fact. He does not qualify it as anything else with words or statements like, " I believe", "I have heard". He does qualify their design but not their designer.
Since that time, apparently, there have been those who have not wished Mr. Dexter to have credit for his accomplishments, yet *I* have seen nothing but speculation as to why this would not be true. Have YOU seen anything written in a timely fashion with substantiated evidence that Professor Low was inaccurate? I will take Professor Low's word for it.
As to the question of poor and rich in Dexters. Does anyone speculate the Devon, Ayrshire, Jersey, Holderness, and other breeds of cattle were organized into herd books, issued papers of registration, and transported to livestock exhibitons by the peasants and small holders? Or do you suppose that the organization of cattle into breeds with papers and pedgrees was accomplished by men of wealth and position?
It was the poor who used these breeds as family cows and managed them on the estates, but it was the wealthy who exhibited them. Why should that have been any different for Dexters? It is the wealthy who have provided the means for the rest of us in most things by paving the road to affordability by creating a demand and then a supply.
Judy
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