THE BOOTH SHORT-HORNS. 95 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE BOOTH FAMILY AND THEIR SHORT-HORNS. 



IN chronological order, next to the Collings, among the prominent 

 earlier breeders come the Booths. As our account must of necessity 

 be an intermixture of their several names in the notices of their herds, 

 an explanation of their personalities will, as we proceed, become 

 necessary. 



Thomas Booth, the elder and first of the family connected with 

 Short-horn breeding, was contemporary with the Collings. His 

 grandson, the present Thomas C. Booth, related to the late Richard 

 L. Allen, of New York, who met him at the great Yorkshire Agricul- 

 tural Show, in August, 1869, that "his grandfather began breeding 

 Short-horns in 1777, at or near Studley Park, and was a neighbor 

 and rival of Robert and Charles Colling." Yet we have no particular 

 account of the earlier animals of his breeding, or what was their 

 particular character. We find no record of animals of their herd 

 earlier than such as are recorded in Vol. i, E. H. B., where all their 

 animals trace their genealogy into bulls bred by the Collings, from 

 which it is presumed that they derived their stock on the sires' side 

 chiefly, or altogether, from them some years after they began breed- 

 ing ; so that the elder Booth in the production of the stock which 

 gave him his chief celebrity bred them from the Colling bulls. The 

 legitimate foundation of his herds may be dated at Kiilerby, in York- 

 shire, about the year 1790. Previous to this he had become the 

 owner of the estates of Kiilerby and Warlaby, not far apart, and at 

 no great distance from Darlington, and within easy access to the 

 places then occupied by the brothers Colling. Thomas Booth had 

 two sons, Richard and John, both of whom afterwards became Short- 

 horn breeders, conjointly with, and succeeding their father. Of the 

 brothers, Richard was probably the most skillful, and being through 

 life a bachelor, with no family cares to divert his attention, his sym- 

 pathies and affections were chiefly absorbed in the propagation and 



