THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



113 



Lyons. [Ths former would remind us slightly, both in 

 size and style, of John O' Groat ; but the red had a rare 

 ibre-hand and rich coat, and although he was not quite 

 so evenly built a calf at that time, we believe that judges 

 now prefer him. The appropriately named massive 

 Grampus was another of the same blood, and strained 

 back through Mrs. Gamp to Mcdora, but he was plain, 

 and his length was a little trying ; and Agamemnon 

 was amiss and not shown. 



Sultan and his sire Robinson Crusoe were the sole 

 tenants of the Bull Paddock. The former is an animal 

 of remarkably good quality, and deep in the fore- quarter, 

 like his sire, while the latter, who was six years old last 

 April, is perhaps on the shortest leg we ever saw, and 

 hence his bosom seems almost to sweep the ground. 

 His carcase is immense, but he is not quite so handsome 

 in his hind-quartors as in his fore, which are not 

 quite so neat ' as Sultan's; and take him alto- 

 gether, he is one of those remarkable-looking bulls, of 

 whom we have seen portraits in plenty, but in whose 

 fleshly existence we have never quite believed. Royal 

 Oak, a purchase at Mr. VVetherell's sale, was in another 

 paddock hard-by. He had not been much forced, and 

 in spite of his good quality he seemed rather to lack that 

 style, which we might have expected to cross nicely with 

 those great fine old-fashioned cows that have always 

 been such a leading feature in the Farnley Herd. 

 Lawnsleeves by Bridegroom, a gay and yet massive style 

 of cow, preparing for the York Fat Show, was the last 

 tenant of the kennel loose-boxes; and when we had 

 noted down the similar fate of Lady Griselda the dam 

 of Bon GarQou, who rancorously refused to breed after 

 his birth, we passed out to see the heifers in the fields 

 behind. 



Among the first group of six, was Blue Bonnet by 

 Lord Clarendon (14807), who was sold into Ireland for 

 200 guineas ; Garcia, a capital own sister to Gardoni, 

 and a thick blood-like yearling, with very neat 

 ofl'al ; and Le Bon by General Bosquet, a half-sister of 

 Lawn Sleeves, of great size and substance, but 

 not so elegant as some we had seen. The latter 

 remark also applies to Vanille by Robinson Crusoe, a 

 fine cow-like heifer, and three crosses from Verbena, 

 througli her dam Valentine. Over the rails, was another 

 group of sis, headed by Marchioness, a grand level 

 heifer; but not so stylish about the head as the white 

 Ma> flower, who, as it seemed to us, was also rather 

 neater in her quarters, and perhaps the gem of the 

 three. Cerito claims no particular notice, except that 

 she was the only one in the herd that showed any plain- 

 ness over the rumps. 



And so we retraced our steps to the park to sec the 

 herd matrons. The great and good old Lady Fanchette 

 wais among the first to catch the eye ; but, alas ! Old 

 Father Time has dispensed his fool's fat with such a 

 liberal hand, that we shall believe the pillion rumps of 

 Mason's Gaudy to be a myth no longer. Near her was 

 Leila by Lord Marquis, from Laura by Whitaker's 

 Petrarch, and the dam of six calves, including Lawn- 

 sleeves, Lj Bon, Magenta, and a calf by Bridegroom, 

 which went at four months old to America for a hundred 

 and twenty guineas. Land's End was there too, in the 

 shape of a nice compact small cow, and calved in the 

 December of the same year that her half-brother John 

 o' Groat saw the February light. She's Coming Again, 

 a cow of great length, is about to perform the same feat 

 in full accordance with her name, and we were assured 

 that we should meet with «' Off She Goes," the next 

 week at Sir Charles Tempest's. Lovely, the dam of 

 Robinson Crusoe, was a red and somewhat old-fashioned 

 cow, with a nice head, and has done her duty faithfully 

 to the herd with seven calves in ten years. Valentine, 

 the dam of Vanille, was a thick, red, and low cow of 

 great character, and with a beautiful udder ; Clair- 

 voyant, the dam of Solferino,not very level in the top, 

 but remarkably deep ; and though Sultana's back did 

 not just please us, we had no other mark against her 

 name. 



There were many others that we might nave men- 

 tioned, but our notes were running beyond their limit, 

 and we were glad to change the venue to the interior of 

 the hall, for the half-hour which still remained. It was 

 not, after all, an unnatural transition from calves with 

 the martial and political names without, to the suiis of 

 ancient armour and the rallying room of the great 

 Yorkshire Orange party, whose leadership has descended 

 from father to son, within. Sir Thomas Fairfax, too, 

 was reflected through his sword and his candlesticks, 

 which hung, with Oliver Cromwell's hat, in the rich oak- 

 pannelled entrance. There, however, the chain of con- 

 nection with the herd ceased. Not one bull stirred up 

 the remembrance of its Royal triumphs on canvas ; and 

 we felt as one green silk curtain after another was drawn 

 aside, by the hand of our host, that there must be a deep 

 truth in the words of the author of Hora Subsecivce 

 when he spoke of the six great sights of his life, and 

 classed the Pyrenees, the Venus of Melos, Titian's En- 

 tombment, and Paul Veroneze's Cain, with his wife and 

 child, and The Rhine under a Midnight Thunder Storm 

 at Coblentz, with the wondrous Turners at Farnlev 

 Hall." 



II n. % 



ON THE ORIGIN, DISTRIBUTION, AND IMPROVEMENT OF 

 THE BREEDS OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



Returning to this subject after a longer interval than 

 at first anticipated, we propose in the present article 

 briefly glancing at the history of the horse ; his dete- 

 rioration (if we may be allowed the phrase) into so many 

 breeds, and the improvement of them by various modes 

 of management, in order to suit the progress of things. 



When speaking of the origin of the ox, it will be re- 

 collected we observed that the fact of Noah being com- 

 manded- to preserve clean beasts by sevens, i. e., " seven, 

 seven," or seven bulls and seven cows, at the Deluge, 

 left room for the argument of a variety of breeds ; but 

 in the case of the horse, there is no such field for specu- 

 lative controversy, for the inspired penman plainly and 

 infallibly informs us, he was to preserve " beasts that 



are not clean by two, the male and his female," only so 

 that at the flood, when the second father of mankind 

 descended into the plains of Armenia from Ararat, he 

 had only one horse and one mare of the species JSquus 

 cahallics, from which to breed. In the former 

 case it may be argued, for instance, without fear of 

 contradiction, that Noah having seven bulls may have 

 had just as many breeds from which to stock the world ; 

 but of horses there was only one variety of each species, 

 whatever that particular variety or breed may have been, 

 from which the numerous breeds now dispersed over it 

 have sprung. 



The origin of our breeds of horses is, therefore, a very 

 simple aflair, for thorough bloods, dray-horses, Sbet- 



K 2 



