In 1627, cattle were brought from Sweden to the settlements on the Delaware, by the Swedish West India Company. In 1631, 1632, and 1633, several importations were made into New Hampshire by Captain John Mason who, with Gorges, had procured the patent of large tracts of land in the vicinity of the Piscataqua river, and who immediately formed settlements there. The object of Mason was to carry on the manufacture of potash. For this purpose he employed the Danes; and it was in his voyage to and from Denmark that he procured many Danish cattle and horses, which were subsequently scattered over that entire region, large numbers being driven to the vicinity of Boston and sold. These Danish cattle are described as large and coarse, of a yellow color; and it is supposed that they were procured by Mason as being best capable of enduring the severity of the climate and the hardships to which they would be subjected. However this may have been, they very soon spread among the colonists of the Massachusetts Bay, and have undoubtedly left their marks on the stock of the New England and the Middle States, which exist to some extent even to the present day, mixed in with an infinite multitude of crosses with the Devons, the Dutch cattle already alluded to, the black cattle of Spain and Wales, and the long horn and the short horn--most of which crosses were accidental, or due to local circumstances or individual convenience. Many of these cattle, the descendants of such crosses, are of a very high order of merit; but to which particular cross this is due, it is impossible to say. They generally make hardy, strong, and docile oxen, easily broken to the yoke and quick to work, with a fair tendency to fatten when well fed; while the cows, though often ill-shaped, are sometimes remarkably good milkers, especially as regards the quantity which they give. Indeed, it has been remarked by excellent judges of stock, that if they desired to select a dairy of cows for milk for sale, they would make their selection from cows commonly called native, in preference to pure-bred animals of any of the established breeds, and that they believed they should find such a dairy the most profitable.