THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



393 



THE HERDS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Chapter XXI. 



CAPTAIN SPENCER'S HERD. 



Although many of them will never lose that tradi- 

 tionary love of Galloways which burnt so brightly when 

 "moss-troopers rode the hill," the Cumbrians have 

 been latterly very steady in their allegiance to Short- 

 horns. Just two-and-tifty years ago, Mr. Christian 

 Curwen, M.P., in whose day Workington Hall ranked 

 as the Ilolker of the North, gave his county the key- 

 note by some fattening experiments, for the report of 

 which the Board of Agriculture awarded him a ^50 

 prize. His " experimental cattle" consisted of & 

 couple of Shorthorns, Herefords, Glamorgans, Gallo- 

 ways, and Longhorns, and a solitary Sussex. The 

 greatest profit was ^£'8 10s. Id. on Shorthorn No. 2, 

 which increased in weight from OOst. to Host.; and 

 the second best was £6 IGs. 5d., on a Hereford, which 

 began at 61st. Tibs., and made 288t. 71bs. In the case 

 of the former, the food, in which 6st. 61bs. of oilcake 

 was the only stimulant, cost £7 17s. 7d., and in the 

 latter £7 19s. lid. ; and each of them was purchased 

 at 4s. and sold at 6s. per stone. 



A race of cattle closely akin to the " Hereford rent- 

 payers," but whose origin has never been quite un- 

 ravelled, flourished about this period in Cumberland, 

 and were familiarly known as " Lamplugh Hawkies." 

 In his admirable prize essay on the Agriculture of West 

 Cumberland, Mr. Dickinson thus describes their pecu- 

 liarities : " They were chiefly dark red or brown, and 

 some of them nearly black with white faces and legs, 

 and usually a stripe of white along the back. The eyes 

 were commonly margined by a narrow strip of colour, 

 as if bound about with coloured tape." Our historian 

 adds that they stood low on the leg, with very large 

 carcases, thick joints and hides, and "abundance of 

 neck leather and dewlap." " What will they say at 

 Cockermouth ?" has long been a favourite political ex- 

 pression in cannie Cumberland ; and it is to a speech of 

 Mr. Grey of Dilston's, at that once fierce little borough, 

 that we have to look for information on the horn ques- 

 tion. At the very time that the straw and chaflfand 

 green meat, &c., were being meted out to the eleven can- 

 didates in the Workington Hall stalls, that gentleman 

 was passing his schoolboy days with Parson Sewell, in 

 the beautiful vale of Lorton. Hence the contrast between 

 the Longhorns of those days and the Shorthorns of the 

 present was a very natural theme when he came back to 

 his old haunts, at the close of half a century, and re- 

 turned thanks for the judges at the agricultural meeting. 

 There is, in fact, no telling what future naturalists might 

 have said on the point, from a bison, or an antediluvian 

 point of view, if Mr. Grey had not taken such especial 

 pains to explain that the Lorton Longhorns of 1809 

 could hardly enter a house, until they had acquired 

 the dodge of twisting their heads on one side, so as to 



acquire the proper angle of entry. We do not know 

 whether these were the " Longhorns" which cut a very 

 good figure in the experiment. Both Mr. Curwen and 

 Mr. Spedding, of Mirehouse, tried to improve on them ; 

 but their skins were too thick and their flesh too slow in 

 its growth, to induce them to persevere ; and after the 

 introduction of Galloways into the Abbey Holme, they 

 and the other Longhorns gradually gave way before a 

 breed, which combined the colours and qualities of the 

 former with the greater size of the latter. The pure- 

 white Lysicks, emanating from the Hall of that name, 

 near the head of the Bassenthwaite-lake, disappeared 

 about the same time ; and Mr. Dickinson recalls, in his 

 pages, their fine spreading horns, and that smart figure 

 and lofty carriage, which rendered them so invaluable 

 for " topping" the Yorkshire dealers' lots when prices 

 were high, like their leg. 



In West Cumberland, Mr. Curwen, as we have seen, 

 was quite the Shorthorn pioneer, and Messrs. Burrow, 

 Milham Hartley, Thompson, and the Rev. John Ben- 

 son (who introduced Regent and Western Comet), did 

 yeoman service in the cause, when his herd was sold off. 

 The East owed not a little to the West, which sent them 

 " Studholme's little Monarch," as he was fondly termed, 

 to spread the Regent blood ; but, unlike his son Maxi- 

 mus (2284) by Magnum Bonum (2243), he was not a 

 show bull. 



There was no such thing as a Shorthorn in the Vale 

 of the Eden, when Charles Collings held his great 

 Ketton sale. The souls of Mr. Richardson (father of 

 the present Mr. Saunders, of Nunwick Hall) and Mr. 

 Mat Atkinson were so stirred within them at the news, 

 that they rode off on a pilgrimage across hill and hea- 

 ther, to the new Durham land of promise. They made 

 no secret of their mission, and farmers flocked from all 

 parts to see the two white and two roan heifers, which 

 were the upshot of it. The pilgrims drew lots for choice, 

 and Mr. Atkinson sent his pair to one of the late Earl 

 Lonsdale's bulls. His lordship from very early times 

 had never lacked a good bull at Lowthcr. Mr Hudle- 

 ston has preserved a tradition, that the Blue Boar of 

 Brougham and the Yellow Boar of Lowther got loose 

 and fought in a pen at Penrith, but the yellow bulls of 

 the East and the blue bulls of the West preserved a far 

 more peaceful rivalry. It was a bad day for Cumber- 

 land breeders when the Lowther herd was sold, and 

 none have noted the change so much as the jobbers and 

 the show judges. The former always said that they 

 would give away the point of their being at times a little 

 narrow through the heart, if they could only have 

 another crop of Gainford hind-quarters. It was with 

 this massive red bull, who so especially distinguished 

 himself as a heifer getter, that the bull competition 



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