bH 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Chapter VI. 

 THE TOWNELEY HERD. 



A weary wait of two hours, on a wet day, at Todmor- 

 den station, with nothing but the chimneys of a dull 

 little manufacturing town to gaze at, is not a cheery re- 

 miniscence in any man's life ; and never was railway- 

 whistle so welcome as that which told us that we were 

 once more on our way towards Towneley. The route lies 

 among wild gulleys and hills, clothed to their summits 

 with fir and heather ; but a valley at last opened to the 

 right, and till the countless chimneys of Burnley (which 

 have no notion of consuming their own smoke, and play 

 Old Harry with fleeces in consequence) began to rear 

 themselves in the murky distance, we were under the de- 

 lusion that for the remainder of the day, at the least, we 

 had exchanged mules and spinning-jennies for sheep 

 and shorthorns. 



The Towneley domains, which have a private station 

 of their own, extend right down to the town, and share 

 with it in the discomforts of one of the wettest and 

 rawest climates in the whole of Great Britain. Pendle 

 Hill, whose fame has long been preserved in the not very 

 smooth-running couplet — 



" Pendle Hil', Peanykant, and Little Ingleborough, 

 Are the largest of the hills, if you search England thorough." 



rises guardian-like over the town; and a long avenue 

 from the front-door of the hall points right away, past 

 the gamekeeper's cottage, to another range of grouse- 

 hills on the north. The Colonel's home-farm consists 

 of five hundred acres, chiefly grass. It is about one of 

 the last " bowers" in which a veritable butterfly would 

 think of being born. The land is on a cold blue clay 

 subsoil, and the Government draining has done but little 

 for it. Harvests do not " laugh and sing" there, as corn 

 cannot be got to ripen on it, one year in six ] mangel 

 wurzels will have nothing to do with it; and hence 

 nearly all the root-food and straw have to be purchased 

 from Ormskirk. The herd has had a fearful battle 

 to fight, in order to compete with the rich grazing 

 counties, and but for the undaunted energy and science 

 of the bailiff, Mr. Joseph Culshaw, backed up by 

 the most liberal and spirited of masters, it could never 

 have stood its ground, and brought so many great rivals 

 low in their turn. 



Mr. Culshaw was bred and born at Broughton, 

 and used to run about and help his stepfather, who 

 was herdsman at Mr., now Sir Charles, Tempest's, 

 before he could even milk or fasten up a cow. 

 His peeps at the different herds on the banks 

 of the Wharfe had gradually inoculated him 

 with a burning taste for the thing. He was never 

 weary of telling Bob Gill, the farmer, that they 

 ought to have something beyond mere dairy cows at 

 Broughton Hall; and when Sir Charles bought Verbena 

 and her daughter Vestris, and he was sent with the latter 

 to the best bull Mr. Whitaker had at Greenholme, his 

 future destiny was clear. No ambassador to a Peace 

 Congress had a higher sense of his responsibility than 

 " little Joe" that day. The cow lay down about twenty 

 times in the last three miles, and the season was oflf her 



when she did get there ; but those toils and woes were 

 forgotten when Mr. Whitaker, admiring the lad's enthu- 

 siasm, showed him all over his herd. He returned home 

 repeating "April Daisy," '* White/ace," " Pretty- 

 face," ^^ Nonpareil, '' and so on to himself, to beguile 

 the road, and at last ventured to speak up to Sir Charles, 

 who promised that he would go over and see them, and 

 take him again. The visit never came off ; and the ap- 

 pointed day dawned bitterly on the lad, when after 

 lying awake all night, he received a message to the effect 

 that Sir Charles and his party had changed their minds. 

 However, Bell by Bertram was purchased on the 

 Broughton account, at Mr. Whitaker'a sale ; 

 and it was under Mr. Thomas Mason, who soon 

 afterwards came as agent, that the future 

 Towneley herdsman gleaned his chief experience. 

 Twenty-four years of his life were thus spent ; then fol- 

 lowed a year and a-half with Mr. Ambler ; and in 1849 he 

 came to Towneley, and, working on the good material 

 Messrs. Eastwood and Strafford had previously col- 

 lected for him, he soon found himself at the head of a 

 herd which was destined to play no second part in the 

 annals of Shorthorns. 



The germs of it were some ten or twelve cows and 

 bulls, which Mr. Eastwood handed over to Colonel 

 Towneley. Among them were Ruby, the last he bred ; 

 Gem, a great local winner, by Harlsonia; Bessy, the 

 dam of Frederick, who had four calves within one year of 

 coming to Towneley, and then twins again ; and also 

 Gipsy, and Buttercup. The latter had bred Horatio by 

 Hamlet the year before, and she then calved Butterfly, 

 who played second to Ruby's first, twice over, at Exeter 

 and Windsor. Colonel Towneley won with Ruby, as 

 well as Duke of Lancaster (both of them by Lax's Duke), 

 in his first year, at the Yorkshire Society ; and it was at 

 a meeting of the same society that her calf Ruby IV, 

 gave Booth's Queen of the May (who is, we are assured, 

 not " slightly down in one hip") the first of the only two 

 defeats she ever sustained. This celebrated cow also bred 

 Richard Coeur de Lion (whom we were requested to 

 abbreviate into plain " Dick"). They also had another 

 cow named Ruby, who was purchased at Lord Craven's, 

 and won the Smithfield Gold Medal. She was a rich 

 red roan, very like Booth's Hope, and her daughter, 

 Jenny Lind, is now in Mr. Grundy's hands. In ad- 

 dition to the above, came Cressida, for 110 gs., at 

 Mr. Parkinson's sale, where Lord Ducie went as high 

 as 103 gs. for her ; and then the small but select herd 

 which Mr. Strafford purchased from Mr. Bannerman, 

 who had them from the late Mr. John Booth, of Killerby. 

 Among the latter were Alice, Beauty, and Mantle, in 

 calf of Beauty's own brother Valiant. A hundred 

 guineas were also well laid out at Kirkleavington on 

 Duchess (51), and she proved in calf of The Duchess 

 of Athol, who went with her half brother, 2nd Duke of 

 Athol, to America, for 500 guineas, and from this sale 

 early in '53, the revival of Shorthorn prices undoubtedly 

 dates. 



Our first introduction, on reaching Towneley, was 

 to Vestris III., who won the head prize in the 

 cow class at the Paris Universal Show, when she was 



