THE FARMER»S MAGAZINE. 



157 



the herd. Few masters can boast of so good a servant, 

 and her own prize-taking career, which she inaugurated 

 the day that Mr. Peel purchased her at Clitheroe, has 

 been closely copied by her progeny. Her three-year-old, 

 which has won seven firsts already, was purchased by 

 Mr. J. B. Booth at Canterbury, and the four-year-old 

 has been nearly as lucky. Thanks to her, horse prizes 

 have become rather a Knowlmere specialty, and this pair 

 were among the five which won five firsts for it at Black- 

 burn in '59. Her two-year-old daughter, whom we met 

 with later in the day, did not share the recent Burnley 

 triumphs of the seventeen year-old Jessie, as a leg twist 

 in a gate has driven her out of the North Lancashire 

 show-yards, for a year at least. Salmon, as well as cart- 

 horses and calves, have also had their turn in the park, 

 and a stream as pure as crystal, from between the lime- 

 stone and the grit, was trickling down the now deserted 

 beds, in which the ova boxes were deposited for hatch- 

 ing. The stream ran over the young fry for twenty-one 

 days ; at the end of which they were removed to the first 

 pond; the second became their local habitation when they 

 yvGTQ yearlings, and they then took their start for life as 

 two-year-olds in the river. It was here that Mr. Rams- 

 bottom, who has been to salmon what Nesfield is to 

 landscape gardening, acquired much of the experience 

 which he has brought to bear in Ireland, Scotland, and 

 Hungary, and solved the much-vexed question to his 

 entire satisfaction, as to whether " smolt" are the 

 salmon fry of the year before, or the year before that. 

 Of the merits of the controversy we know nothing; 

 but those who feel dull when they are waiting for the 

 train at Clitheroe, and yearn to know what a young 

 "cock-salmon" looks like when it emerges from the 

 egg, and is magnified 64 diameters, had better stroll 

 up street and look into his shop window for some minutes 

 as zealously as we did. 



Usurpation, a cow with a nice forehand and well- 

 formed rib, but rather large hips, by Usurper 

 (13929), from Princess Alice, an 105-guinea purchase 

 at the Aynhoe sale, crossed the drive at this moment, 

 and recalled our thoughts to shorthorns once more. She 

 was heavy in calf at the time to Valasco ; and since then 

 the young white bull Morisco has been gazetted with 

 Mr. Strafford, Her Speke mate Roan Cherry made a 

 curious end. She was considered hopeless as a breeder 

 after the birth of Baroness Cherry, as, although she 

 seemed blooming, she showed no sign of coming in sea- 

 son, and the discharge was accounted for, at the end of 

 twelve months, by the butcher's discovery of a skeleton 

 twin, A common cow, which was shortly to act as 

 nurse for Bridesmaid, separated her from Lalhj, the 

 first that Mr. Grundy ever bred. This red daughter of 

 Earl Derby (10177) has all the peculiar setting on of 

 his neck and head, and a nice deep forehand ; but she 

 falls slightly away in the loins, and is rather dark in the 

 horn. Her last calf was Earl of Oxford, by Gunter's 

 Sixth Duke of Oxford (12765), but it died of diarrhoea, 

 and she is now due to calve in a few days to Malachite. 

 In point of age, Bountiful has nearly a six years' pull 

 over her, and the high-bred fusion of blood in her veins 

 has " eventuated" not exactly " a spanker," but in a 



nice compact, hardy-looking cow, a little thick in the 

 jowl, and slightly inclined to be rumpy. Czarina, who 

 in emulation of Pearley, had left her tail in a thorn 

 bush, had very nice quality, but no very remarkable 

 character, and from her style of head and manner of 

 holding it, we should have taken her at first for a John 

 o' Groat. Waterivitch of Royal Buck, Hopewell, and 

 Hamlet descent, and a verysquarey-made cow with nice 

 short legs, and hocks well under her, was bestowing a 

 loving salute on her Waterfay, by Valasco. We found 

 this calf along with her roan half-brother Sultan, from 

 Czarina, in a heather shed (where Malachite spent his 

 calf-hood), on the other side of a small tributary 

 stream to the Hodder, which runs right through 

 the Park. The white was rather the robuster-looking 

 of the two, while Sultan, who had more elegance and a 

 very capital coat, showed a trifle more tendency to be 

 on leg. 



Gibbs's farm was our next point ; and the body 

 sheets which hung on the v/all to dry, and the blue 

 van with the red wheels drawn up on the knoll, and still 

 thick with the dirt of a weary twenty-miles' drag across 

 the hills, with Malachite and Bounteous from Burnley, 

 the night before, told the proximity of *' the training 

 ground." The workmen were busy at a new buU-and- 

 calf house, and a twelve-inch vortex turbine, which has 

 just been put up to turn a saw, bruising, and agricultural 

 purpose mill, is an earnest that its owner does not intend 

 to shrink from doing battle in future. So far, in addition 

 to his Royal victory. Malachite has four firsts on his 

 list, to wit, at the North Lancashire (where he met 

 Col. Towneley'sBroadback and Priam), the Manchester 

 and Liverpool, the Craven, and the Wetherby ; but 

 Mr. Fawkes had his revenge upon him with Gar- 

 doni at Pontefract, Although not a very striking bull 

 to the eye, he has the merit of fine length without 

 weakness ; his richness of hair was well served 

 at the Royal, and he is level and neat in his hips. 

 When he had returned to his place, Bounteous and 

 Lalage took up their stations side by side. The latter 

 has nearly five months' advantage in age, and is a little 

 nearer the ground, but on not quite so nice a leg ; and 

 although she has a much better breast, she loses all the 

 advantage when you look at her from behind. Bou7i- 

 ieous, of the triple Grand Duke crosses, is of a lighter 

 red, and has a sweeter and cleaner head ; but her 

 neck is a trifle too cresty, and this rather de- 

 tracts from her otherwise beautiful character. She 

 had been a little punished with her trip to Burnley, 

 where she was beaten by Frederick's Granddaughter ; 

 but still she did high credit to the Grand Duchy. Mr. 

 Peel's Lonk ram, " Mountain King," who had won 

 his thirteenth first-prize at the same show, stood waiting 

 for us as we turned from this pair. He made quite a 

 picture as he stood, held by a rod through holes drilled 

 in his horns, and with a fleece of 161bs. on his back, of 

 which fully lOlbs. had been made since the 6th of May. 

 Through the heart and in the breast he was all that 

 could be wished, and the family failing of the Lonks over 

 the loin was very small indeed. So far he has never 

 known a defeat, and even the stauuchest Herdwickite 



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