372 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Nothing struck us more at Tortworth than the 

 extraordinary prices given for the very young stock, 

 bulls, and cow calves of a few weeks old. "We have 

 even now a vivid recollection of the prolonged 

 — h's ! of admiration, and yet more genuine 

 astonishment, to which the hammer occasionally 

 fell. Lord Feversham in this keen contest secured 

 only three lots, but these included " Gloucester," 

 the Paris prize bull of 1853, for which his Lord- 

 ship gave a hundred and twenty guineas, and 

 " Fifth Duke of Oxford," booked to him at three 

 hundred. They were both calves of a few months 

 old at the time. A portrait of the former appeared 

 in the Magazine in June, 1S56, and we now pro- 

 ceed with the claims of that of his companion. 



In 1855, Fifth Duke of Oxford took the first 

 prize of £5, at the Cleveland Show, as the best 

 two-year-old bull. 



In 1856, at the Paris Universal Exhibition, he 

 was awarded a bronze medal, which reads equal to 

 a very high commendation. The over-feeding i)ro- 

 hibition, however, was enforced on this occasion, 

 and Lord Feversham's stock, amongst that of some 

 other exhibitors, excluded from competition. 



In the same year, at the Rotherham Meeting of 

 the Yorkshire Society, Fifth Duke of Oxford took 

 the second prize of £lO for bulls of any age, Mr. 

 Ambler's famous Grand Turk being preferred to 

 him. 



In 1858, at the Chester Meeting of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, he took the first prize of £30 

 as the best Shorthorn bull, beating amongst others 

 Mr. Barrowby's Marc Anthony, Mr. Wetherell's 

 Statesman, Mr. Fawkes's Sir Edmund Lyons, and 

 Sir Charles Tempest's Napoleon. 



In the August following, at the Northallerton 

 Meeting of the Yorkshire Society, he took the first 

 prize of £25, again beating Statesman, Marc An- 

 thony, and Napoleon. 



We wrote thus of the Duke at the Chester Meet- 

 ing; "The best bull was imdoubtedly the best 

 bred one in his class, coming direct from the Bates' 

 blood, as preserved by Lord Ducie. But he was 

 yet quite a contradiction to look at. Of immense 

 size certainly, but very coai'se in appearance, with 

 a plain head, a drooping horn, and big joints, the 

 Duke of Oxford owes his success almost entirely 

 to his quality. This was pronounced to be wonder- 

 fully fine. Seldom was there a beast that handled 

 so well, and this of itself proves his high descent. 

 He is not, however, an animal to please the eye ; 

 while his dam, we believe, had the same ugly 

 straight horn and mean head." Mr. Robert 

 Smith in his Journal report says, " the immense 

 substance of this bull, together with his fine touch, 

 must have gone far to establish him in so high a 

 position." Perhaps Mr. Davis has a little flattered 

 him. 



THE HERD.S OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Chapter V. 

 CAPTAIN GUNTER'S HERD. 



A very painful chord was struck at the Yorkshire 

 Agricultural INIeeting of '49, when hundreds of 

 friends who expected to grasp him once more by the 

 hand, and to enjoy the half-sportive, half- sarcastic 

 lecture, on each prize beast, of " the old man eloquent" 

 of KirkleavingtoD, learnt for the first time, that he had 

 gone to his rest, and that their Shorthorn festival was 

 on his funeral day. His heart was with horn and 

 hoof to the last, and there was no " cruel Phyllis" to 

 cross him in that love. Those who have strolled with 

 him in his pastures, can recall how the cows and even 

 the young heifers would lick his hand, and seem to 

 listen to every gentle word and comment, as if they 

 penetrated its import ; and even when the last struggle 

 was nigh, and he could wander amongst them no more, 

 he reclined on some straw in the cow-honse, that his eye 

 might not lack its solace. 



Now, that perhaps less prejudiced but not more clear- 

 cutting brains are left to work their way up that channel 

 of science, which he buoyed out, each year confirms the 

 belief that he was not so very far wrong, when in speak- 

 ing of one of his best Duchesses, he said to Lord Althorp, 



" The destiny of Shorthorns depends on this calf; this 

 slender thread of a calf." 



Still, although he had got as far as (63) be had made 

 but little figure with the Duchesses, when he moved 

 from the Tyneside to Kirkleavington, whither Red Rose 

 who had been bought from Mr. Hustler, accompanied 

 him. She was three removes from Favourite on one 

 side and two on the other, and from the union of her 

 and the Earl (6t6) came second Ilubback (1423). His 

 idolatry for this bull did his herd no small harm ; and 

 it was only when he found that he had lost 28 calves in 

 one year, solely through lack of constitution, that he be- 

 gan to cast about, and in vain applied to Mr. Whitaker 

 for his famous Frederick. That gentleman took Second 

 Hubback for a time, purely to oblige his friend ; but as 

 if to show (he perverse whims of fortune, the stock of no 

 other bull made such prices at his sale. Perhaps on no 

 occasion was Mr. Bates so offended with any one as he 

 was with poor old Coates, when in 1828, he met him 

 with Mr. AVhitakerand Colonel Powell of Pensylvannia, 

 in the yard at Greenholme. His aim was to get him, as a 

 great authority, to go and lay his hand, in the presence 

 of that pioneer of our Shorthorns in America, solemnly 

 on the bull, and speaking from the hoary depths of ex- 



