THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



189 



search for truth was much less intense than his desire 

 to send cows to Comet. 



This bull was put in at 400 gs., and the biddings 

 went on gaily by 50 gs. at a time. It had been whis- 

 pered that 1,500 gs. would not stop Mr. Boazmau, of 

 Aycliffe ; but it was not to be. Early Sliorthorn his- 

 tory—which is, after all, little more than oral tradition 

 — is unusually dim on this head. Some say that he 

 was drawn aside and detained by a confederate of the 

 four purchasers, in an animated conversation in the re- 

 freshment tent; while others aver that (like Mr. Richard 

 Sutton, when he came to buy the Yarborough Hercules 

 at the Quorn sale) his post-chaise broke down, ajid he 

 reached the scene of action only in time to make a 

 fruitless offer to the happy quartet — Messrs. Wetherell, 

 Trotter, Wright, and Charge— of £500 for their bar- 

 gain. It was agreed between the four that they should 

 only send twelve cows each, and those their bond fide 

 property ; and hence it was only through a fictitious 

 sale that Mason was enabled to gain the long-coveted 

 prize. The alloy curse, which he had so perseveringly 

 thrown in Charles Colliug's teeth, was said to have 

 come at last into his own stock in another shape, and 

 from a quarter which he least expected. As one Willy 

 Brack conducted the cow Carnation on a visit to Comet, 

 at Denton, an avenger, according to the legend, ap- 

 peared for Charles, in the shape of a half-bred bull, 

 which jumped the hedge at her salute; and from this 

 stolen interview came Jupiter and his black-nosed 

 blood. Comet was buried in the fulness of time at 

 Cleasby, and a sycamore in a garth, which is called 

 " Comet's Garth" to this day, and lately passed into 

 the possession of Mr, John Booth, of Killerby, duly 

 marks the spot for all lovers of the Herd Book. 



Lord Althoi'p bought freely at Robert Ceiling's sale 

 in 1818, when he parted with everything but his heifer 

 calves. This sale bore no comparison in point of blood 

 or prices to the Ketton one ; and Mr. Whittaker con- 

 gratulated himself ever after that he had missed Lan- 

 caster (621 gs.), when he fully thought that he had been 

 the last to catch Mr. Robinson's eye, and got Frederick 

 (1,060) instead, for 50 gs. from Mr. Charge. Lord 

 Althorp also said that JNonpareil (370 gs.) did him no 

 great good, and that he was " never really successful 

 till he got the Chiltons." However, when Robert Col- 

 ling's heifers were dispersed, after his death in 1821, 

 not a few of them passed into his lordship's hands ; 

 and when perhaps the finest lot of cows ever offered 

 came to the hammer at Chilton, in 1829, he bought 

 eighteen, the one from whicli he bred most being " No. 

 25, 36 gs.," who became Wiseton's dam. Eventually 

 the herd dwindled, as the land at Wiseton was not of 

 sufficient stamina to counteract such close in-and-in 

 breeding. It was at the third Wiseton Sale that Lord 

 Ducie came out with 400 gs. ior the two-year-old 

 Usurer, whom he fancied for his beautiful fore-quarters. 

 *' Usurer can give shoulders to anything," was his 

 lordship's constant eulogium of him, and he used him 

 extensively. He was in Lincolnshire at the time of the 

 sale, and is, we believe, still alive, at Mr. Nesham's, 

 near Darlington, 



Lord Ducie was always bad to beat by hard cash. In 

 fact, he was never worsted but once, and that was by 

 Mr. Thomas Edge for a white heifer at Mr. Rose's sale at 

 Cotham, near Newark. Strange to say, Mr. Edge had 

 never bid more than 100 gs. at a sale before. His friends 

 rallied him in vain on his unwonted ardour. " She'll 

 look very loell in Strelley Parle," w as bis only reply; 

 and he seemed to consider it quite a privilege to get her 

 for 220 gs., and sell her for i,'35, with the reputation of 

 being a free-martin. His lordship always seemed to 

 enjoy the joke; but " What, beat Tom Edge!" was 

 his only remark on it. 



At Mr, Bates's sale Lord Ducie was as undaunted 

 as ever, and it was nothing but being, in racing phrase, 

 "a good beginner" which secured him the 4th Duke of 

 York so cheap. He had " determined to buy him, or 

 make him dear for some one;" and he put him in so 

 promptly at 200 gs., that although one gentleman at 

 least wished to have him at two hundred more, a 

 sort of stagnation supervened, amid which Mr, Strafford's 

 sand ran down. If the first bid had only been a hundred, 

 three at least would have gone on. It was this sale 

 which first opened that Duchess tribe to the world, 

 which had gone on increasing, and then dwindling at 

 Kirklevington, during the forty years since "T. Bates, 

 Esq.," had been written opposite "38. Young Duchess, 

 2 yrs, old, by Comet, dam by Favourite, 183 gs.," in 

 Mr. Kingston's catalogue, on the Ketton day. She was 

 bulled by Comet at the time, and Mr. Bates had never 

 once deserted the blood except for one cross with 

 Stephenson's Belvidere, who was the sire and grandsire 

 of the Duke of Northumberland. It was with him and 

 the Oxford Cow, and his two Duchess 'heifers, that he 

 set forth and won every prize he showed for at the first 

 Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1839. 

 They came in a steam boat to London, and walked to 

 Oxford, and it was said at the time that nothing but the 

 presence of Mr, Bates, and the soothing eff'ect of his 

 pat and his " Poor BukeV prevented the latter from 

 slipping off" the stage into the water when he turned 

 awkward and declined to re-embark. With the victory 

 of his Cambridge cow, and eight months' bull-calf at 

 Cambridge next year, and his bull Cleveland Lad at 

 Liverpool, the royal prize winning era of Mr. Bates 

 virtually ceased (in fact he hardly ever showed again), 

 and that of the Booths began. Since then, these 

 two have figured as the White and Red Rose of pas- 

 toral history, and have had nearly as many adherents 

 in their far more glorious battle field. The Duchess 

 tribe, over which Mr. Bates had watched with such 

 jealousy, were still more dispersed at the celebrated 

 Tortworth sale in August, 1853 (which only fell some 

 two shillings in its average below Charles CoUings's), 

 and the Americans had determined to carry the tribe off 

 bodily across the Atlantic, if Captain Gunter and Mr. 

 Tanqueray had not bid against them, Company as they 

 were, and upset all the wise counsels which had been 

 taken at Gloucester over-night. 



About £151 was the average at Mr. Charles Col- 

 Hng's sale ; i;i28 at Mr. Robert CoUing's ; i?59 at 

 Mr. Christopher Mason's ; ^£"68 at Lord Spencer's ; 

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