Farnley Hall. 287 



lead the foal and dam, or ride the stallions, with the 

 carpet-bag and sheets folded up in front of them. 

 The owner of Lady Derwent is of this mind. The 

 mare is in a white hood and sheet, and wears a collar 

 studded with pieces of round pasteboard on her neck, 

 each containing the printed record of a victory. He 

 rides her through Wetherby in state, and we leave 

 her standing in her groom's hands waiting to be 

 trucked, with a bunch of white ribbons flying from 

 her head, big enough for an army of brides. 



" The Vale of the Wharfe is adorned with elegant 

 mansions, and the views obtained from neighbouring 

 elevations are at once noble and commanding." So 

 says a Yorkshire Directory, and so old Coates must 

 have thought from his heart, as laden with weighty 

 calf-records, and still weightier bull data, beginning 

 from Abelard, that descendant of " Booth's lame" 

 and " Booth's old white" bulls, he gained the top of 

 the wooden ridge of Sheven. Then patting his white 

 mare's neck, he descended on his winding road to the 

 homestead at Greenholme, which lay stretched, west- 

 ward of the litle market town of Otley, like a land of 

 shorthorn promise beneath. It was here that " The 

 Improved Durham Breed" found a home in those 

 dreary hopeless times which followed upon the Comet 

 mania and the war, when 30 guineas a season was a 

 great bull hire, and 80 guineas a marvellous purchase. 



Mr. Whitaker never bated one jot of heart or hope, 

 and "the quiet afternoons at Greenholme" have 

 borne their rich fruit for shorthorn breeders at last. 

 Without his earnest aid, Coates would never have 

 ventured to bring out the first volume of the Herd- 

 Book in 1822, when nothing but " Corn and 

 Currency " was on every English tongue, and 

 agrarian outrage and hunger were raging across the 

 channel. It was "printed by W. Walker, at the 

 Wharf edale Stanhope Press, top of the market-place, 

 Otley ;" and a manuscript copy of it is still preserved, 



