76 A HISTORY OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 



of the far-famed Duchess family, which ulti- 

 mately became the highest-priced and most- 

 widely-sought tribe known in Short-horn his- 

 tory. He immediately began asserting with 

 characteristic assurance the extreme value of 

 this heifer on account of her descent, and an- 

 nounced that he would not take 1,000 for his 

 bargain ! Such was the beginning of the Duch- 

 ess "boom.*' 



Student, experimenter and exhibitor. In 

 1810, at the age of thirty-five years, this ambi- 

 tious Northumberland tenant farmer became a 

 student at Edinburgh University a fact which 

 should not be without its lesson to those who 

 at the present day are wrestling with the prob- 

 lems presented by our modern agriculture. His 

 course of lectures embraced not only practical 

 agriculture but mental and moral science. He 

 took copious notes which have been preserved, 

 from which it is clear he made good use of his 

 time. After his return to Halton we find him 

 busy with various farming and feeding opera- 

 tions and experiments in the handling and stor- 

 ing of forage crops. It took, in his opinion, a 

 working capital of five times the amount of 

 one's rent to farm profitably. At Halton he 

 employed a capital of 7,500, one-half of which 

 he had expended under his twenty-one-year 

 lease in permanent improvements, of which he 

 only had the benefit during the unexpired term 



