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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



not calculated for growing the long red mangels. The 

 farmyard lies about 200 yards from the hall, rather a 

 tantalizing proximity, as Sir Charles was once strictly 

 forbidden by his medical attendants to enter it for three 

 long years, in consequence of a severe attack of malaria 

 fever. The buildiogs are plain and substantial, princi- 

 pally ranged round a yard ; and gas is laid on with a 

 jet inside each window, so as to dispel both the inner 

 and outer darkness. 



Entering a low-pitched, comfortable old byre, we were 

 first introduced to the junior of the herd, in the sweet- 

 headed, deep-ribbed, roan heifer calf by Peter Simple, 

 a son of Booth's Harbinger, and straining back to the 

 Dan O'Connell sort. The rich hair and fine substance 

 which Harbinger has put on to this stock — and, in fact, 

 wherever he went — told its own tale in Harmless from 

 Mayflower, whom we found in a box on one side of an 

 archway. She was only a year old on August 26th, and, 

 after beating Mr. Torr's Wave Hope for the heifer-calf 

 prize at Hull, and winning a similar first prize at the 

 Royal North Lancashire at Blackburn, she came out 

 and won as a yearling on the home circuit at Skipton. 

 Prince Oscar by Crown Prince was hired as a calf, and 

 finished Harbinger's second year out at Broughton ; and 

 we had evidence to the fact in Prince Frederick from 

 Crinoline, and the red Rocket from Merry Bird, who 

 both struggled out together in the herdsman's halter. 

 They were remarkably neat in the head ; but 

 the latter, on the whole, was our favourite. 

 Patriot, by Harbinger from Perfume, was next in order ; 

 and then Punster from Dora (a great grand-daughter of 

 Dan O'Connell), a very choice rich-haired roan calf, 

 with a beautiful back, and neater ofl'al than any 

 we had seen. To this succeeded a heifer calf with a 

 remarkably good head and flue depth and quarters by 

 Prince Oscar from Vanity, a combination of Harbinger 

 and California, which set the grand-daughter of Ofi-she- 

 Goes, who is somewhat staring in its colour, and not 

 so good in its middle, somewhat at a discount. 



After meeting the Emperor Napoleon by Duke 

 of Cambridge (12728) so often at shows, and 

 hearing so many doubts of his fertility, we were 

 rather curious to see how that wondrous cylinder 

 would bear stripping. He was only begun with for 

 the first time in the October of 1858, as Sir Charles 

 was of course anxious to use Prince Oscar to the last, 

 and they have now upwards of a dozen calves by him. 

 Mr. Unthank bred him ; and as he will be only four years 

 old next March, we look back in wonder at his massive 

 proportions, when he was shown among the aged 

 bulls at Chester and Northallerton. His quarters, back, 

 and flank are very good, and, take him altogether, 

 he is an animal who will always repay a second look, 

 although he rather lacks grandeur about the head. He 

 was second to Mr. Fawkes's Sir Edmund Lyons as a 

 yearling bull at the Yorkshire Show in 1857, and has 

 won eight first prizes since then in the Northern coun- 

 ties. Peter Simple by Harbinger from Flame then showed 

 from the opposite side of the yard. This Keighley 

 prizeman is a thick but not a very elegant or level bull, 

 with somewhat too staring hips. In his head and back 

 he considerably resembles the old bull, and shows the 

 prominent Booth rib, and a good share of quality to 

 boot. His white half-sister Surplus from Slut by Fair 

 Eclipse won both as a yearling and a two-year-old at 

 Keighley and Skipton, and with the exception of being 

 a trifle patchy, we thought her as thick and good a 

 heiCer as we had seen, and with a remarkably good back 

 and bosom. Rifleman by Vanguard, whose head he in- 



herits, was the last of the old bull division. He was 

 bred by Mr. Torr and sold to a Skipton Company, but 

 he knocked down one of the subscribers, and injured 

 him so severely, that they were fain to get quit of him. 



After hearing this, we moved an adjournment to the 

 pastures behind, past a lot of store pigs of the large 

 white breed, and the circular chimney of the saw-pit, 

 which with ivy clinging round it to its very summit, 

 forms no eye-sore to the beautiful garden behind. The 

 sawing is very deftly managed with a table on railway- 

 wheels, to buit all lengths of logs, and a crusher for oats 

 and oilcake is attached to the same machinery. We met 

 with nothing among the thorns and beeches which stud 

 the home-park so profusely, except the sheep (which are 

 principally a cross between the Cheviots and the South- 

 downs), and Merry Bird by Fair Eclipse. She is the 

 dam of Crinoline, who was one of the first pointed out 

 to us in the pastures on the other side of the beautifully 

 wooded gorge, which seems to steal away by the side of 

 the brook towards Skipton, and the distant grouse fells. 

 The white was an old acquaintance, and although she 

 has grown rather more patchy and larger on the hips 

 since then, it was not difficult to recognize the nice offal 

 and true parallelogram shape, which gave her that 

 Cumberland and Westmoreland Cup in 1858, as the best 

 animal in the yard, which Mr. Ambler's Prince Talley- 

 rand won last year. Mayflower was another of the whites, 

 and we could not dispute the justice of tlie decision,which 

 lately placed her behind Crinoline at Skipton ; and OfF- 

 She-Goes, who had her Prince Oscar bull-calf at her 

 side, soon impressed herself upon us, as she stood up, 

 and looked proudly round with all the air of old Cam- 

 bridge Rose 6th, when she faced Mr. Strafford in the 

 ring at Cobham. Rosette the dam of Slut can never 

 be out of favour at Broughton, if she can continue to 

 show such a bag ; and five Prince Oscar heifer calves, 

 one of them with a good coat of bad colour, and a 

 couple of nice heifers, by Prince George, were our other 

 principal attractions on Cioosemire, and the two fields 

 adjoining. 



A slight circuit brought us to that special pride of 

 Broughton Hall, the scroll pattern garden which Nes- 

 field designed, and which is said to have scarcely a peer 

 in the world. We must, however, leave it to others, to 

 tell how the " red, white, and blue" and purple, and 

 yellow gravels are all blended into harmony, with the 

 Prince of Orange Calceolarias, the blue Lobelias, or 

 the King Verbeuii ijhow "the purple Zelinda plays 

 a conspicuous part in one of the most beautiful and tel- 

 ling ribbons ;" how Abutilon striatum was in great 

 beauty, and how Ahrothainus elegans was blooming 

 profusely. Those mysteries of floral craft are not for 

 us. The '' most beautiful and telling ribbons" in our 

 eyes, are those which mark out the first prize in a show 

 yard, and anon with a glance at the spacious Grecian 

 conservatory, and the fountain with the five seamonsters' 

 heads, we find ourselves on the terrace in front of the 

 Hall, with the ten-year-old Miss O'Connell beneath, 

 and listening to her history from the lips of her old guar- 

 dian, who now occupies a farm at Stainton near Skipton. 

 This daughter of Liberator the last son of Dan O'Con- 

 nell has always been an immense favourite with her 

 master, and even the patchiness which age has brought 

 with it, takes off but little from her grand form, to 

 which her head with its peculiar horn lends such remark- 

 able character. The O'Connell bh)od had met us every- 

 where throughout the day, and the sight of this venerable 

 matron forme.i an appropriate close. 



