466 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



in the Shorthorn world. At the present moment it 

 contains about 120 females, of which only eleven are 

 not by Booth's bulls, and fifty of them figure on the 

 calvinj,' list, principally to British Prince. Mr. Torr 

 has always been, not only one of the staunchest, but the 

 very earliest adherents of Warlaby. Beginning to hire 

 from Mr. Richard Booth in the spring of '44, no less 

 than eighteen bulls of his, including assistants, have 

 passed through his hands at all prices, from 60 gs. to 

 200 gs. He paid the latter price for Hopewell for two 

 years, and claimed him among several competitors, 

 when he returned from Ireland, where his stock have done 

 such yeoman service to their owners at shows and else- 

 where. In spite of the price, he was one of the cheapest 

 bulls that ever came to Aylesby ; but a fall from a cow 

 disabled him at the beginning of his second season, 

 although we are glad to hear that his native air is likely 

 to restore him to his sphere of usefulness. He got 

 about 40 calves for Mr. Torr ; of which, as is often the 

 case with elderly bulls, nearly two-thirds were heifers, 

 and the whole of them in the present herd. Leonard was 

 the first bull to come, and he was taken, in consequence 

 of the 150-guinea hiring bargain with Mr. Bates for 

 the Fourth Duke of Northumberland, having gone off 

 on a moot point, as to his only bulling twenty-five out 

 of the thirty cows which then formed the Riby Herd. 



Without being a show bull, Leonard was almost fuller 

 than any bull of his day, of good individual points, and 

 he communicated a constitution and soUdarite to the 

 herd, which it has never lost. It was this feature which 

 made Gem at Killerby, and Hope at Warlaby, so price- 

 less ; and it was of the former that the Lord Spencer 

 said to Mr. Torr, in his quiet decisive way, " She is the 

 best specimen of a Shorthorn I ever saw." Bucking- 

 ham, then in comparative obscurity, came as a help to 

 Leonard in his second season, but he left no females 

 behind him. Baron Warlaby was then the premier for 

 two seasons, and six fine cows are the only remnants of 

 his fifty-seven. The Vanguards form a complete army, 

 and exactly a fourth of the 180 calves, which were en- 

 tered to his seven season's credit, in the " Aylesby Herd 

 Book," are at present among the females of the herd. 

 His stay was divided into two periods of three and four 

 years; and during the intervening year, 1852 (which 

 he signalized by getting Bride Elect), Crown Prince 

 took his place there. He left two-and-tliirty calves 

 behind him, and as the great majority of them were 

 males, and Summer Sun and Gold Drop are in the Im- 

 perial stalls, only half-a-dozen cows, headed by Guiding 

 Star, preserve his royal line. Helmsman, Majesty, 

 Clarence, Prince George, Benedict, Roseberry, Thorn- 

 berry, Topthorn, Leonidas, and Bridesman, have also 

 been billetted here, but the first eight are unrepresented 

 now. Mr. Torr has very seldom exhibited the Booth 

 bulls, but on one occasion Baron Warlaby beat Baron 

 Ravensworth and a large field of yearling bulls at 

 Market Rasen ; and Vanguard was one of the nine 

 which went to Gainsboro', without having tasted a 

 pound of oil-cake, and all returned with first or second 

 rosettes. 

 Stepping down the drive, and having " made things 



comfortable and pleasant" with the Castle Howard 

 bloodhound, of a pedigree as ancient as Belted Will's, we 

 entered the Church Barn Yard. It lies within a stone's 

 throw of the house, and is overlooked by that tower which 

 served for the beacon of the first steeple race in Lincoln- 

 shire, and gloried, time out of mind, in those elderberry 

 bushes, which grew forth from dragons' heads, and 

 for whose vested interests Philip Skipworth battled 

 so stoutly against archdeacons and rural deans. The 

 barn, whose laurel-clad roof-tree has so often rung 

 again at the Ram Dinner, when the late Mr. .John 

 Booth rose to give one of his racy John Bull acknow- 

 ledgments for " the Shorthorn breeders of England," 

 flanks one side of the boxes, which are all condemned. 

 Their present occupants are three Hopewell bulls, and 

 first and foremost among them is Booth Royal, from 

 Killerby Gertrude. He is a fine roan, not particularly 

 handsome in the horn, but well carrying out the Booth 

 character in his wealth and thickness of flesh ; and so 

 much is he to Mr. Torr's mind in pedigree and form, 

 that he intends to break through his conventional practice, 

 of not using bulls he has bred himself. Watchman, a red 

 and white, out of a Vanguard dam, goes back toBates'si 

 Waterloo III. ; and Golden Hope (the last of Gleamy's 

 sons, and full of the Vanguard character, with the coat 

 of Londesboro'), to Mr. Robson's Constellation and 

 Young Favourite tribe, on which, as well as Londes- 

 boro', by Booth's Tomboy, his owner has always pinned 

 his faith. Two young Hopeful heifers stand hard by, 

 the one from Glittering Star, by Vanguard, for choice. 

 The blood of these two bulls has united singularly well, 

 Vanguard contributing the size and substance, and 

 Hopewell the elegance. 



Hence we strolled onwards into the old kennel yard, 

 from which, even before the days of the Pretender, the 

 combined pack of Pelham and Tvvyrwhitt went forth 

 to try the furzes for fox or hare, and had miles upon 

 miles of unenclosed breezy wolds for their hunting 

 ground. The dovecote outside seems nearly of the same 

 date, but still it aff"ords a snug canopy to Star of Hope 

 (a white half-brother to Silver Star), who was bound, 

 along with Fine Hope, from Flower, to the Clarence 

 River in Australia, with a hundred guineas on each of 

 their heads. They both went there as proxies for Silver 

 Star, who was sold for 150 gs., and fell ill when his 

 berth was taken. He won as a yearling at Grantham, 

 last autumn, and was highly commended at Chester ; 

 and that gentle curly white head and rich quality and 

 substance deserve a much nobler fate. His own sister, 

 Ssveet Valentine, lately went for 120 gs., at three years 

 old, to the Emperor of the French, with four com- 

 panions, at very nearly the same figure. 



Crossing the road, we reach the last remnant of thatch 

 and mud, which marks the Ostler era. An artist would 

 turn a very scornful eye at the brace of model cottages 

 on the right, and dash this hovel joyfully into his can- 

 vas. Old Rennet, by Fanatic, out of Red Rose, is in 

 keeping with her residence, and looks like the very 

 genius of Shorthorn antiquity, with her wasted frame, 

 and her game leg. She runs entirely back, as we have 

 observed, to the Anna tribe at Studley, and was knocked 



