THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE, 



■.m 



of a good style, and so was her sister Water Melon, the last 

 Harbinger Mr. Sanday bred, though with perhaps not the best 

 of shoulders. Chrysalis, by the Earl of Dublin, is a very 

 good cow, and still retains a deal of grandeur. ^Ir. Torr 

 has " two legs of her," and she has bred the partnership five 

 calves since the Fawsley sale, gaiuiug a month in each of the 

 last two years. She began at two years and a quarter, and a 

 month after she had completed her seventh year she produced 

 the sixth of her calves, which have been equally balanced in 

 point of sex. The breeding knack is hereditary, as her dam 

 Garland, who has had seven in the last seven years, will be 

 down to calve very shortly ; and hence the joint Aylesby 

 and llolmepierrepont ledger looks unusually promising. Side 

 by side stood a mother and daughter, to wit. Laundry Maid 

 and the Duchess of Glo'ster, blessed with more size than beauty, 

 and near tliem was the red and compact Crusty, from Crystal, 

 who is, Harbinger- fashion, rather small, and hence the strong- 

 headed, fine-middled Faith, by Sir Charles, from Fanchette 

 (whose colour she has assumed), quite overpowered her. Faith 

 goes back to Booth's Fame, and is a good-looking cow, but her 

 sire was hardly worthy of her dam. Sugar Plum is also of the 

 compact and small order, and one of the four females, which 

 are all Mr. Sanday has left of the Second Duke of Bolton. She 

 is quite among the most spicy of the herd, and excels in her 

 fore-quarters. 



The High Field was shared betvreen some ram lambs, and 

 another cow and calf company, first and foremost among which 

 was the crack of the close, the sweet, thick-fleshed, and fine- 

 haired Lucy Lockit by Usurer, and own sister to Laundry Maid 

 andLalage. She is full of character, and with an especially 

 fine bosom and head; although she is showing a rumpy ten- 

 dency rather early on, and seems just the sort to make up for 

 Smithfield at some future day. At present, that fate is not 

 imminent, as she has two good-looking daughters, and 

 is likely to perpetuate her name still more. Rosabel by 2nd 

 Duke of Bolton, and with a nice Booth head, rather disap- 

 pointed Mr. Sanday, by breaking last year ; but it after- 

 wards turned out that it was a mere freak of Nature, 

 and that she was some months gone in calf at the time. 

 Lady of the Lake, from Lady Foggathorpe, with her 

 close-sprung rib, completed the Second Duke of Bolton lot; 

 and of the four Sir James calves in the same field, we were 

 especially struck with the deep square roan heifer from 

 Agatha, But we must not forget Foggathorpe by Harbinger, 

 from the old Foggathorpe tribe, " bringing back," as a friend 

 once enthusiastically wrote us, " the palmy days of Market 

 Weighton, when Edwards so often came to the fore with his 

 cows, and his famous sheep, and his harvest waggons almost 

 kept pace with the old York Mail." 



This inspection over, we took once more to the road, and drove 

 off to Stragglelhorpe. There was little to look at as we went, 

 beyond the dam of Lady Adeliza, with some ram-lambs and 

 common cows in Brusmoor, a reclaimed pasture, which, when 

 Mr. Sanday first took the farm, would have been dear at 5s. 

 per acre ; and the dusty procession of shearling ewes and 

 teazers, which George, armed with one spur, on his white- 

 faced chesnut, was shifting to a distant field. Ahead of us. 

 On the hill, was Cotgrave Gorse, from which so many straight- 

 necked ones broke in Sir Richard's and Jack Morgan's 

 Leicestershire day, and there were few covers that they liked 

 better to draw. The Stragglethorpe farm lies a very little to 

 the left ; and a white cart-mare, the dam of Mr. Sanday's 

 stallion, was quite the queen of thestrawyard. There was noth- 

 ing particular to linger for here, save and except her bay son by 

 England's Glory, who was highly commended at Canterbury. 

 On one iiJe he has a good deal of 'Suffolk, and hi? beautiful 



back and quarter go far to atone for the smalluess and rather 

 peculiar placing of his eye. Then we adjourned to a. white 

 clover field, from which the lambs are rigidly escluJed as 

 soon as it is in full flower. A few blackfaced nurses — or, 

 rather, Holinepierrepout Ayahs— were the occupants, along 

 with some Leicester ewes, headed by the ten-year old dam of 

 " Carlisle," which flourishes in immortal youth, with another 

 ram- lamb at her side. Seven heifers by Gener.il Havelock, 

 who only left one bull behind him here, were just over the 

 hedge ; and one of them, from an own sister to Nottingham, 

 exactly resembled that mighty Strattonite in her colour. 

 Tnere too was the neat and red Crinoline, from Chrysalis, 

 and a red-aud- white calf from Frolic; but the sheep had 

 been quite banished from one field, from a fear of the heels of 

 aremarkibly Cue bay three-year-old hunter of Rataplan and Bel- 

 zoni descent. A good Fairy, by Corsair, from Fanchette, grazed 

 fearlessly along with him, as well as a white Sister to Not- 

 tingham, and a thick-backed heifer by Vatican, from Water 

 Nymph, the dam of Welcome. From this point, we gradually 

 wound our way towards Holmepierrepont once more; no- 

 ticing en route, a daughter of Chrysalis, and her daughter 

 Emma, the result of a stolen cross with a common-bred bull, 

 which tells its own tale through the head. There was also a 

 robust-looking, meritorious heifer, Fawsley Garlaad 3rd, by 

 Hopewell, from Old Garland, and bred at Aylesby ; a white 

 heifer by General Havelock, from Faiih, one of the Water 

 Nymphs, and Loyalty, by The Corsair, from Lucy Lockit, 

 whose otherwise fine points are a little detracted from by a 

 little plainness behind and a tendency to be slack-backed- 

 Still she and four or five others made up a very goodly lot for 

 The Corsair, who cost Mr. M'Dougal, a spirited Australian, 

 300 gs. last year, and became food for fishes on his passage 

 out. Mr. Sanday used him pretty freely, and the cross with 

 Welcome, Ada, and Sugar Plum did not diiappoint him. 

 His daughter Fairy is also full of style and character, although 

 not quite so truthful in form. 



Skirting the pastures, we again came across George in 

 the midst of some red clover and fifty-three rams. It was 

 beautiful to see how his " Scotchman" fraternized with them, 

 licking their faces and then lying down beside them, as the 

 departed Fly and Dutchman (of which he speaks so tenderly) 

 were wont to do in the days of their pride. Being in the 

 sheep vein once more, we strolled down to the Holmepierre- 

 pont church. We could not find Will Eato, the old shepherd 

 of the Stubbins's, at his toll-bar, so we had to be content with 

 very different links with the past in the shape of the hovels, 

 where the mighty C and D G, and K, and D R werereared. 

 The fields in which they stand are in the occupation of 

 Mr. Stubbina'a great nephew, aud a solitary oak tree marks 

 the whereabouts of the old show-hovel. Times msy change 

 and men may change, but the spirit which animated the 

 veterans who fought and "bled" for rams on that battle-ground, 

 has not died; and we might well feel, as we passed through 

 Ratcliffe (the home of George Parr), and so on through The 

 Vale to Grantham, and looked out for the fleecy or cricketing 

 groups which occupied nearly every other field, how firmly 

 an English county can cling to its own traditions, and refuse 

 to be severed from its earliest love of prime Licester mutton 

 and square hits to leg. 



