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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



the edge of this reclaimed land, and were then shifted 

 671 masse to a commodious range of white free-stone 

 buildings, which were built just under Old Park Wood. 

 At present, exclusive of common dairy cows, they num- 

 ber twenty-five females, and six males, and Culshaw's 

 brother is in olfice as herdsman. The sea-breeze stole 

 pleasantly across the Hag meadow, and as we thought 

 of the eternal rain, cows almost spectral with famine in 

 the provinces, and a military band wildly discoursing 

 music to nearly 170 bulls, with glaring eyes and curling 

 backs under the roof of the Royal Dublin Institute, it 

 was no small treat to be in that quiet spot, on the other 

 side of the Channel, beneath an almost summer sky, 

 and looking upon a bevy of cows and heifers, the like 

 of which, for high natural condition and symmetry, we 

 have scarcely ever met before. 



Lady Love, a cow with a very nice head and a rare 

 udder, was the first on parade, along with her young 

 calf Ladylike, the only Hogarth left at Holker. He 

 got them all good colours, and all bulls save this. Then 

 came the long and low Nonsuch 2nd by Earl of Warwick, 

 from Nonsuch, who has been under the sod for some 

 months. The old cow v/as in calf to Duke of Glo'sterwith 

 Prince of Glo'ster, when she came from Tortworth, 

 but he was sold to Mr. Saunders of Nunwickfor lOOgs., 

 while her grandson Newminster departed to Mr. Clark 

 Irving 's in Australia last autumn. Laurel by Grand 

 Turk, and an own sister to ilr. Stewart's McTurk, 

 followed in the shape of a very nice-coated, deep, lengthy 

 cow, with a very lively head. She is within a month of 

 calving to 8th Duke of Oxford ; but it was the sight 

 of her very even, bloodlike, and capital-backed calf 

 Countess of Barrington by 3rd Grand Duke, which 

 decided Mr. Drewry to send all the Oxfords to that 

 celebrated bull. Then we recognized the thick, short- 

 legged, and hardy-looking form of old Cosey, with her 

 calf Statesman's Daughter, well worthy both of dam and 

 sire, and catching the horns of the latter to a nicety, as 

 if to disprove the slur which rumour threvi' over his 

 fertility. Statesman's Daughter has proved a capital 

 thriver when she was once fairly set agoing, and the 

 records of the weighing machine, on which the principal 

 animals are checked every fortnight, showed her average 

 gain for the last four weeks previous at exactly 25 lbs. 



The Cleopatras mustered in great force, mother and 

 three daughters. Cleopatra by the Earl of Dublin (101 78) 

 was bred by Mr. Adkins of Milcote, and is said to bear a 

 strong resemblance to the 700-guinea Duchess of the 

 Tortworth day. We thought her rather a Gwynne in 

 flank, and a slightly Roman nose were her most promi- 

 her general style; and a strong loin, fine depth of 

 nent traits. Cleopatra 2nd by Prmce of Glo'ster, and 

 Cleopatra 3rd by Cambridge Barrington, both inherit 

 her good back. The latter has capital quality, but her 

 white ankles and her Icg-ofFal generally gave you rather 

 an idea of a Hereford. Cleopatra 4th is a very neat red 

 and white lieifer, and as she is by the Duke of Bucking- 

 ham (14428; the old cow seems to have no small powers 

 of adaptation. 



A vision of Smithfield then loomed into sight in Sarah 

 Gwynne, the eldest of the six of that tribe. She cost 

 His Grace only 70 gs. at the sale of Mr. Saunders, who 

 purchased her from her breeder, Mr. Ewan Troutbeck. 

 There have been two calves from her at Holker, but she 

 has refused to breed in her eleventh year, and is taking 

 wonderfully kindly to her new oilcake life. At the time 

 we saw her she weighed rather more than 20 cwt., and 

 had made 58 lbs. in Iho last fortnight, or 4 lbs. less 

 than Statesman's daughter. She is a very fine and 

 roomy cow of a good old constitutional stamp, and has 

 character for ever, but unfortunately in her prime she 

 always carried her head rather low, and now that her 

 back is expanding, her neck is assuming a fixed look more 



novel than picturesque. Carry Gwynne is a different 

 style of animal, and darker in her roan, and only spoilt 

 by a tendency to be a little high on the rump. Her 

 powers of breeding have been singularly good, as she is 

 scarcely four years and a-half old, and yet she has 

 had three calves and is half gone with her fourth. 

 Minstrel 2nd from Minstrel, purchased at Mr. Tanque- 

 ray's sale, and with two crosses of Bates in her 

 pedigree, also joined the Gwynne array with her 

 calf Marmion, by 8th Duke of Oxford, at her side. She 

 is a good thick white heifer, with a capital middle, and 

 a great deal of gaiety about the head, though not exactly 

 with the delicate grace of Beauty's Butterfly, on which 

 Mr. Drewry used to cast such longing glances when they 

 were both calves, and think what a match they would be 

 in a pasture. Dustie, a nice cow and capital milker 

 (who has just calved Ossian to the 8th Duke of Oxford), 

 brought back old Cobham recollections ; and Maid of 

 the Mill, by Marmaduke, by her side, with the prover- 

 bial crops of its race, and its close neck vein, looks 

 well worth all the money which was given for her dam 

 that day. There, too, was Coral, and her calf Charming 

 Boy, the latest purchase from Milcote, rather unsym- 

 metrical about the horns, but good all over, and with[|an 

 udder and a breast of remarkable prominence. To all 

 present seeming, she is one of the cheapest that ever 

 came there. 



Countess of Oxford, who is rather a smaller cow than 

 her dam, did not join the group of Oxfords, as she had 

 left two or three days before on a visit to Third Grand 

 Duke, at Springfield. Oxford 15th is a great fine even 

 cow, with rare quality ; and her Grand Duchess of Ox- 

 ford 2ad is perhaps the best of the three calves of Grand 

 Duke and Oxford lineage. Still there is something 

 more piquante about Countess of Oxford 2nd than any 

 one of the tribe so far. She is a rich roan, with rather 

 more white than her dam, guiltless of all forcing, as His 

 Grace does not care for shows ; and the style in which 

 she holds up her beautiful head, with her Bates' nostril 

 standing right out, and looks proudly about her, as if all 

 the blood of Kirklevington was in her sole keeping, is 

 enough to bring a photographer on to his knees with 

 delight. As with horses, so with cattle ; there is not 

 more than one in a hundred that you specially care to 

 fix on your retina, and think of when you are far away 

 from herds ; but she certainly is one. Her brother, 

 Tenth Duke of Oxford, made one of the trio of Oxford 

 bulls which then walked slowly towards us in Indian file 

 (along with Knightley, a rich roan yearling, by Prince 

 Imperial, from Aloyze 2nd), while the rest were all 

 standing at ease over the meadow. He was perhaps in 

 his handling the best of the three, and has been let for 

 the season to Mr. Ashburner, of Irleth. The two others 

 were from Oxford 15th. Of these, Duke of Oxford 8th, by 

 Cambridge Barrington 2nd, is a pure Bates, and, with the 

 exception of the shape of his horns, which go round with 

 a buffalo curve towards his cheeks, he is a good-looking 

 even bull, with a great second thigh, deep flank, and 

 capital twist ; in fact, beef to the heel, so to speak, and 

 close in front. Ninth Duke of Oxford, by Mr. Bolden's 

 Prince Imperial, is, on the contrary, rather upright in 

 his horns, but a very thick capital-fleshed bull. He was 

 far the heaviest of the lot at three months old, when he 

 " came to a long check ;" but as soon as he did commence 

 thriving he added a hundredweight a month to bis live- 

 weight for four months in succession, and 821bs. of it in 

 the course of a fortnight. All this was done without any 

 undue forcing ; and, in fact, whether we look at its very 

 great fertility, or the beautiful condition of the cattle, no 

 herd reads a stronger lesson than the Holker as to the 

 folly of that over-training which spreads as much havoc 

 among heifers as it does among thorough-breds. 



