FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. Ill 



breeding bulls in Ayrshire." A like success seems to have 

 attended the agent in obtaining the Devon bull. This he 

 bought of John Blomfield, a cattle breeder living in the 

 vicinity of the estate of the earl of Leicester, it having 

 been originally of the earl's own far-famed stock. The 

 four cows were bought directly from the earl's own herd. 

 The agent, in his letter, after giving points of pedigree, re- 

 marks, incidentally : " Lord Leicester has directed the ar- 

 tist who is to carve out the likeness of a Devon bull, for his 

 father's monument, to look at Mr. Blom field's bull (the sire 

 of the one I bought), before he begins his work. 7 ' Such a 

 testimony, considering the certainty, under breeding regu- 

 lations, of identity in traits and features in the purchased 

 animal and its sire, would seem to be conclusive, and must 

 have silenced even the hypercritical, as respects the merits 

 of the society's Devon bull. 



It may be remarked that this reference to the monu- 

 ment of the deceased earl is not the only evidence this 

 file of papers contains, that, in the estimation of Britain's 

 nobility, practical agriculture diminishes, in no wise, the 

 lustre of the family escutcheon. One of the agent's 

 vouchers reads thus : u Mr. Bickett, Dr. to the Earl of 

 Leicester: 2 North Devon heifers, 28 ; 2 North Devon 

 cows, 32." The signature following, in receipt of pay- 

 ment, is not that of the earl, but of the manager of his 

 farm ; but manifestly there was no disposition to disguise 

 the prosaic mercantile facts, nor apprehension of loss of 

 dignity to the house of Leicester, through its known com- 

 plicity in the cattle traffic. 



The events occurring between 1845 and 1850 are few in 

 the record. In 1846 John Chipman Gray became the 

 president, in place of John Welles, resigned, and Daniel 

 Webster was chosen as the first vice president. In 1850 

 Dr. John C. Warren was chosen second vice president, 

 and the situation remained unchanged until the decease 

 of the former, in 1852. This may be regarded a notable 

 episode in the society's history, in that, for the time being, 

 it had for its two vice presidents, men who, confessedly 



