146 Saddle and Sirloin. 



on that day still speak of " Comet" as the most 

 symmetrical bull they have ever seen. He was not 

 very large, but with that infallible sign of constitu- 

 tion, a good wide scorp or frontlet, a fine placid eye, 

 a well-filled twist, and an undeniable back. His price 

 caused breeders everywhere to prick up their ears. 

 They had already heard of Fowler refusing 1000 guineas 

 for a longhorn bull and three cows, as well as for a 

 cow and her produce of eight seasons ; but never of 

 one bull achieving that sum. The spirit south of the 

 Humber was fairly roused at last, and when, eight 

 years after, the Barmpton herd came to the hammer, 

 the representatives of four or five more counties were 

 found at the ring-side. The Rev. Thomas Harrison 

 and Mr. Edmonds of Boughton had often talked to 

 Lord Althorp, Sir Charles Knightley, and Mr. 

 Arbuthnot, in the Pytchley Club or woodlands, of the 

 great day at Ketton, and his lordship sent a commis- 

 sion to Barmpton, when Robert Colling parted with 

 everything but his heifer calves, for three heifers and 

 a bull ; while a Nottinghamshire and a Leicestershire 

 man joined in the highest-priced lot, " Lancaster" 

 (621 guineas), which had some five crosses of 

 " Favourite" (252) in his veins. 



For many years previous to this sale Mr. Bates had 

 been breeding shorthorns by the Tyne side, and 

 bringing his beasts, as Sir Hugh Smythson had done 

 before him, to periodical scale tests. Still, he does 

 not seem to have struck out any especial herd-line for 

 himself till he took up his fancy for the Duchess tribe. 

 Charles Colling assured him that the cow which he 

 bought in 1784 out of Stanwick Park was the best he 

 ever had or ever saw, and sold him her great-grand- 

 daughter " Duchess," by " Daisy Bull" (186). She was 

 the prelude to Mr. Bates's purchase of " Duchess 1st" 

 by " Comet" (155), the only " Duchess" at the Ketton 

 sale, and a very cheap lot at 1 86 guineas, as, inde- 

 pendently of her produce, her new owner left it on 



