414 Saddle and Sirloin. 



skirts of Bangor, and skirts the old Chester road for 

 the first two. The dairy is close to one of the lodges, 

 and carried us back, with its cool slate slabs, its mimic 

 fountains, and its white and blue rimmed delf bowls 

 (on which the emblazoned boar and griffin surmount 

 the Bruce's heart and locket), to the dainty dairy of 

 England beneath the Belvoir woodlands. The farm 

 buildings themselves are a substantial stone pile, rather 

 noticeable for their convenience within than any archi- 

 tectural pretensions without. Many of the calf-boxes 

 in the second yard were especially built for Dorkings, 

 in the days when the fowl mania was at fever-heat. 



Penrhyn has pretty well held the lead in Welsh 

 runts,* both at Birmingham and Smithfield, since 



* Most money is asked for the black runts from Anglesey ; but they 

 have become "more coloury" than they once were, and many of them 

 are red. The dealers go to the yards in the spring of the year, and 

 take them younger, and they can make of them at 2^ years what they 

 used to do with a year more on their heads. The graziers in Essex and 

 Kent buy young heifers of 15 to 18 months (many of them from Caer- 

 marthenshire), call them "calves," and winter and feed them off. 

 On good land the heifers "have more swell on them" than the bul- 

 locks. The latter go principally to Leicester and Harboro' markets, 

 and not on to Northampton. Some of the best three-parts-bred, twos 

 off, make i6/. to 2O/. in good years. The Midland Counties men buy 

 bullocks in October, and keep them twelvemonths, but seldom a 

 second winter if they can help it. Mr. Bennett of Marston is an 

 especial admirer of North Wales blacks. He generally picks six of the 

 best to get up for show, and sometimes feeds a hundred. William 

 Evans buys a great many in the spring and after August for the Mid- 

 lands ; and the three brothers Roberts, and David Owen, and Jarratt 

 all bring large supplies to Daventry, Rugby, Leicester, and Harboro', 

 and the remnants on to Northampton. The Evanses (William, John, 

 and Lewis) were once very great in the trade ; but all of them are dead. 

 Richard Evans is one of the oldest in the trade, and brings many 

 Shropshires as well as Welsh beasts, and Dan Davis has had a great 

 lot down the last three years. "Spectacle Jones" has sometimes 

 brought nearly 1200 to the Midlands between March and November; 

 but he has in a measure retired now, and only looks to old customers 

 and his farm. 



In Anglesey beasts generally do well, as there is plenty of green 

 crop ; and " the calves" went to Barnet Fair until the plague regulations 

 were put in force. Heifers used to go only to Essex, but now more of 

 them go to the Midlands. The bullocks have the best land, and a bull 



