THE BIRTH OF A "BOOM." 397 



white heifer Fair Maid of Hope and her bull 

 calf King of the Ocean. Four other heifers 

 were also selected, included among them being 

 the white Knightley heifer Lady Oxford. Hill- 

 hurst had already set the pace. The price paid 

 for Bride of the Vale ($5,000) was fixed by the 

 fact that Gunter had just obtained that unpre- 

 cedented figure from Mr. Cochrane for a Duch- 

 ess heifer. The Booths were quite as proud of 

 their reputation and prestige as were the fol- 

 lowers of the fortunes of Thomas Bates, and 

 Warlaby females were quite as difficult to ob- 

 tain as were specimens of the Duchess tribe. 

 It had been Mr. Booth's settled policy not to 

 sell females to contemporary British breeders 

 to be retained in England. He had permitted 

 Mr. Bolden to send out a shipment to Austra- 

 lia, and we believe that a Christon heifer had 

 been sold to Mr. B. St. John Ackers of Prink- 

 nash Park, who was a distant relative. At that 

 time, however, this tribe had not been admit- 

 ted into full fellowship with the time-honored 

 Booth Short-horn strains. Aside from these 

 transactions Bride of the Vale and Merry Peal 

 were, we believe, the only heifers Mr. Booth 

 had parted with for breeding purposes, and 

 they were only sold with the understanding 

 that they were to be taken to America. 



Tn 1870 ten head were imported, including 

 the Christon heifers Patricia and Minaret. In 



