

CHAPTER XV. 



Shorthorn Breeding- — The Bates Dinners — Lord Dunmore to the 

 Rescue — Eminent Breeders in the Palmy Days — My Sale and 

 Sales in General — The Rose of the Quarter Sessions — A Dis- 

 sertation on Poultry — The Prebendal Geese — The Aylesbury 

 Duckling — A Year of Wet and a Year of ^Var — A Legal 

 Decision on Crops. 



For many years I was prominently associated with the 

 fascinating pursuit of shorthorn cattle breeding. The 

 shorthorn world was divided into two schools, the 

 Bates and Booth admirers. My delight in the 

 Knightley or Fawsley breed, a strain of great purity 

 established by Sir Charles Knightley, of Fawsley in 

 Northamptonshire, had induced me to throw in my 

 lot with the former tribe. 



The last chapter partook of the nature of a 

 gastronomical treatise, but I cannot refrain from 

 supplementing its narrative by some mention of the 

 Bates dinners, banquets given by the leaders of those 

 gentlemen who fostered that distinguished line of 

 beasts. They had their origin in a very singular event. 

 Mr. Robartes possessed an excellent herd of cattle, 

 which had become distinguished for their style and 

 quality, and he had been using a highly-bred Bates 



