430 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



It is not considered to be at all an exhausting crop to 

 the land. 



The Royal Agricultural Society have received a 

 paper on the yellow lupin : in my next I will give an 

 abbreviated account of it. I am much astonished it has 

 not been grown on the poorest soils of Norfolk and 



Surrey, as in no way is the same amount of manure to 

 be put into the land at such trifling expense. 

 Yours truly, 



W. Hartley. 

 Poste Restanie, 

 Brussels, March 23, 1859. 



THE COBHAM SALE OF SHORT-HORNS. 



Another great sale was added on the 23 rd of March to 

 the record of Shorthorn herds ; and its ^SO 12s. average 

 places it well up with every modern sale except Tortworth 

 and Bushey. To this fifty-two cows and heifers con- 

 tributed £80 4s., and eleven bulls £82 13s. ; and add- 

 ing about £82 for pigs, the grand total was 

 £5,161 19s. Keen judges had laid the average at £80. 

 They argued, and with justice, that Marmaduke and his 

 seventeen heifer-calves would counterbalance any loss 

 there might be on the two-year-old heifers, and the bulls, 

 two of which have sunk sadly into the back-ground since 

 Marmaduke came. As it turned out, this bull made 

 the sale ; and there is no doubt that twenty-four of the 

 cows and heifers would not have fetched the prices they 

 did, unless they had been served by him. We know 

 not what the average might have risen to, if Mr. Combe 

 had carriedout his idea of buying the Kirklevington herd 

 in 1850, jointly with Earl Ducie ; but it seldom falls to 

 the lot of one man to make a miss of that kind, and 

 then run into luck as he did by determining not to leave 

 Marmaduke at the Bushey sale. 



His herd history only dates back to 1845, when he 

 bought Fanatic, and two or three other good things, at 

 Castle Howard. At the Kirklevington sale, which pro- 

 duced 4,500 gs., he merely purchased Cambridge Rose, 

 for 70 gs., but laid out another 20 gs. on her by sending 

 her to be served by Belleville at Mr. Mason Hopper's, 

 a few miles off, before she came south, and The Beau 

 was the result. He then bought Puritan, a somewhat 

 leggy calf, from Lord Ducie ; but he did not do much 

 for the herd. Among those who were gradually 

 enrolled as its matrons, were Fairface, of the Maunby 

 tribe, from Mr. Hutton, of Sober Hill, near Warlaby; 

 Gazelle, who was purchased as a calf from Mr. Par- 

 kinson's sale for 100 guineas, when Minerva, the gran- 

 dam of Marmaduke, was sold for 40 guineas ; Darling- 

 ton 8th, who came from Mr. Sainsbury's at 155 guineas; 

 and Sea Nymph, from Captain Shaw's, of Brantingham 

 Thorpe. 



The Downside farm buildings are of a substantial but 

 unpretending kind, and look like a bevy of large old barns 

 and sheds. The cow-house, with its neatly-plaited 

 straw edging, its large lanterns swinging from the roof, 

 and its handy calf-boxes is quite a specimen of the cosy 

 style ; while the long cart-stables, with the forge at one 

 end, used to remind us, on a winter's evening, as the 

 sparks flew up at the stroke of a red -capped Mulciber, of 

 one of those warmly-tinted interiors in which the Dutch 

 painters so revel. Over the park, farm, and everything 

 there is a peculiarly pleasant English glow. The turn of 

 the road towards the bridge — hard by the church- 

 yard, where the old man now rests— is a beautiful rustic 

 bit; and "Combe, Delafield, and Co." rises to the 

 mind with the porter at the lodge, who, true to his cha- 

 racter, wears a snow-white apion. The two brood 

 mares, whose scions have so often carried the " purple 

 and white cap" at Ascot and Newmarket, roam 'about 

 the park, relieved at last from all breeding toils ; while 

 Will Ford, the ancient huntsman of the Furrier bitches, 

 looks after his brother-pensioner. The Nob, to whose 

 Glaucus blood Mr. Combe so affectionately clung. 



Every labourer has a feeling word for their late master. 

 Sixty of them bore him by turns to that massive urn- 

 shaped tomb ; and not only they, but every other man 

 in his employ, received a small legacy. 



The day was fine and still, but rather cold ; and on 

 the whole, such a sight at a sale was never yet beheld in 

 the south. The fame of Marmaduke and his calves had 

 spread far and wide ; and on Monday most of the great 

 shorthorn breeders or their agents arrived in London, 

 and not a few, including the Duke of Montrose, 

 Viscount Strathallan, and Col. Pennant, slipped down 

 on the quiet on Tuesday, and the Lord of Burleigh 

 the week before. The road from the Esher sta- 

 tion was all alive soon after nine ; and when the 

 clock had completed another round, the cabman who 

 drove us back confessed that he and his white steed were 

 just completing their fifth journey that day. A dead 

 cow on its road to the Surrey Union kennels was not 

 an encouraging omen for purchasers, as they sped along 

 the six miles in the morning ; but luncheon helped to 

 dissipate all nervousness on that head. And well it 

 might ; for a better, both in point of quality and quan- 

 tity, we have never seen at a sale. Two tables were laid 

 in the largest half of the barn, so as to take in 240 at 

 once ; but the purveyor, Mr. Williams, the Mayor of 

 Kingston, had not looked at the thing from a City Al- 

 derman point of view ; and when the guests once flocked 

 into the feast, the truth of Albert Smith's remark became 

 apparent, that two Smithfield Show visitors at his En- 

 tertainment always take up the place of three ordinary 

 ones. At all events, only forty could sit on each 

 side ; and the first batch sat so long, heedless of the 

 thrusting masses, who were urging their stomach 

 claims on the policeman outside, that Mr. Strafford 

 rose, and, after impressing upon them the axiom of 

 " Live and let live," invited them, by his example, to 

 retire. 



As the hour of sale drew near, the crowd swelled con- 

 siderably, and it was set by many at quite fifteen 

 hundred. We have seldom seen so serried a ring ; and 

 the bevy of red Surrey waggons did yeoman service both 

 for sight-seers and purchasers. No kings out of busi- 

 ness attended from Claremont ; and Lord Feversham 

 alone represented the House of Peers. Among the 

 breeders and agriculturists, we observed Messrs. Drake, 

 Colvin, R. Booth, Bolden, Wetherell, Jonas Webb, Torr, 

 Hobbs, Sanday, Spencer, Hales, Howard, J. Robinson, 

 Bowly, &c. ; while H. R. H. Prince Albert, the Duke 

 of Devonshire, the Marquis of Exeter, Lord Dacre, Col. 

 Pennant, Col. Towneley, and Mr. Marjoribanks were 

 represented by their agents, Messrs. Tait, Drewry, 

 Biggs, Thurnall, Doig, Culshaw, and Tallant. Mr. 

 Strafford mounted his waggon a little before two 

 o'clock. He remarked, in the course of his open- 

 ing, on the fact that Surrey had no indigenous 

 breed of horse, sheep, cow, pony, or pig, and, in fact, 

 nothing but the Dorking hen ; and that, therefore, such 

 an assembly was no small tribute to the celebrity of the 

 shorthorn. In allusion to the progress of this herd, 

 after only a fourteen years' trial, he called on a gentleman 

 — whose name we did not catch, but who seems to have 



