BRITISH SHOWS AND THEIR INFLUENCE 149 



Royal shows have been so extensively reported that 

 there is little difficulty in gaining access to the rec- 

 ords of these and similar events in the mother coun- 

 try, but it is believed that the presentation of a few 

 notes dealing briefly with the great contests of the 

 period immediately antedating the era of extensive 

 importations to America will be of permanent value 

 and interest as shedding additional light upon the 

 English progenitors of the American Herefords. 



At Oxford ajid Cambridge. Suggestive of the 

 high educational value placed upon the Royal show 

 by the breeders of Great Britain is the fact that 

 the enterprise which was to prove such a fruitful 

 source of profit and pleasure to the nobility and 

 tenantry of the United Kingdom was launched at 

 those great centers of learning, the famous old uni- 

 versity towns of Oxford and Cambridge. 



We have already made reference to the fact that 

 Mr. Jeffries' celebrated bull Cotmore (376) was the 

 Hereford champion of 1839 at the initial show at 

 Oxford. He was a bull that weighed according to 

 English estimates above 3,500 pounds. In the same 

 pastures at The Grove in after years there grazed 

 such different models as Sir Thomas and The 

 Grove 3d. The first-prize cow at the first Royal 

 was called Spot, and was bred by Turner of The 

 Noke, afterwards owner of Sir David. She was by 

 a son of Hewer's Sovereign. 



At the second meeting of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society at Cambridge in 1840, the celebrated old- 

 time Hereford breeder, T. C. Yeld of The Broome, 



