12.
RARE BREEDS SURVIVAL TRUST.
Following on a television programme early in 1973
I wrote to Mr Hereon who had been portrayed in the
programme, asking for details of his Trust.
I was told that the Trust was not then in being,
but that it was hoped to form an organisation of
various farmers and interested persons, to further
the studies of domestic live stock breeding, and the
maintenance of the old breeds of farm livestock.
It had been explained in the programme that Mr
Henson was in joint partnership on a farm near
Cheltenham, where part of the husbandry concerned keep-
ing a living museum.
As many people will be aware, our cereal crops are
descended from wild grasses, which have been selectively
bred for high yield, disease resistance, regular
cropping and so on. This has been the case too with
livestock. It has been found necessary with cereal
crops to breed back with the more primitive progenitors
to re-invigorate the present types of seed, which are
beginning to show signs of weakness in one way or
other. Plant breeders now realise the necessity of
maintaining a gene bank before it becomes too late and
and the original wild grasses become extinct.
Animal breeders have become concerned that the sarae
problems may arise soon with farm livestock and a
working party was set up in 1968 to look into the
question of preserving the rare breeds of British farm
animals. Breeds which have been the forebears of
much stock as the American Long Horns for example.
The Trust was eventually set up in March 1973,
committee members being taken from Reading University
department of Animal Production, Drusillas Zoo Park,
the Agricultural Research Council, Royal Agricultural
Society of England, Fauna Preservation Society, Zool-
ogical Society of London, Ministry of Agriculture, and
on.
The 1968 survey showed that already some breeds
are on the verge of extinction, though some were less