BAKEWELL AND THE GEAZIER'S ART 49 



both summer and winter. Camden describes the cots in 

 Gloucestershire as long, low-ceilinged buildings, three 

 stories high, with slopes at the end of each floor, so that 

 the sheep could mount to the topmost story. He cha- 

 racteristically derives the Cotswolds from this practice of 

 cotting. But in the eighteenth century our farmers gained 

 a start over other agriculturists by their readiness to de- 

 tect and accept coming changes. When Louis XVI. was 

 forming his flock of merinos at Rambouillet to improve 

 French fleeces, English sheep-farming took a fresh de- 

 parture, which had for its object, not wool, but butcher's 

 meat. 



Bakewell was an agricultural opportunist, ' un homme 

 de genie qui a fait autant pour la richesse de son pays que 

 ses contemporains Arkwright et Watt.' He was born in 

 1725, and died in 1794. He saw that the day was near 

 when meat would be more valued in the ox than draught, 

 or in the sheep than wool. He succeeded in producing 

 beef and mutton for the million. Visitors gathered from 

 every part of the world to learn from him what are now 

 axioms of stock husbandry, and to see his famous black cart 

 stallion, his bull ' Twopenny,' or his ram ' Two-pounder. '^ 

 In appearance he resembled the typical yeoman who figures 

 on Stafibrdshire pottery, ' a tall, broad-shouldered, stout 

 man of brown-red complexion, clad in a loose brown coat 

 and scarlet waistcoat, leather breeches, and top-boots.' In 

 his kitchen he entertained ' Russian princes, French and 

 German royal dukes, British peers, and sightseers of every 

 degi-ee.' He never altered the routine of his daily life. 

 ' Breakfast at eight : dinner at one ; supper at nine ; bed 

 at eleven o'clock : at half-past ten, let who would be there^ 

 he knocked out his last pipe.' 



Before his day no true standard of shape was recog- 



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