FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE 133 



McGregor of Doonholm, but at the date of purchase 

 was owned by another cattle breeder. The four Ayr- 

 shire cows were bought of Mr. McGregor, who ap- 

 pended to his bill of sale, at the request of the agent, 

 his opinion of the bull which had already been pur- 

 chased by the agent. It was that Prince Albert was 

 "one of the best 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, remarks, in- 

 cidentally: "Lord Leicester has directed the artist who 

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

 father's monument, to look at Mr. Blomfield's bull 

 (the sire of the one I bought), before he begins his 

 work." Such a testimony, considering the certainty, 

 under breeding regulations, 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: "Mr. Bickett, Dr. to 

 the Earl of Leicester: 2 North Devon heifers, 28£; 2 

 North Devon cows, 32£." The signature following, in 

 receipt of payment, 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, 



