96 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



and the necessity of using none but the most sym- 

 metrical as sires. There was a small tribe offered 

 with most attractive names upon their pedigree, but 

 exhibiting throughout a marked Ayrshire look, espe- 

 cially about the head. Generations back, their ances- 

 tress was doubtless a cow of that sort. Murder will 

 out, and this was an instance of it. The old lady 

 must have had a strong character of her own to have 

 perpetrated it so far down. The average was about 

 £50 per head, young and old ; which, considering how 

 many were ancient and profitless both to the butcher 

 and dairy — how many, again, viewed as ordinary stock, 

 were worth at most a ten-pound note a-piece — was 

 surely a paying price. However, upon this the opinions 

 of the wise will differ. The conclusion I arrived at, 

 and which is confirmed by accumulating experience, is 

 that any one possessed of an artistic eye for points, and 

 sufficient capital to keep on a growing herd for some 

 years, by regular attendance at the distinguished sales, 

 and uniform use of one stamp of male, may ultimately 

 bring to the hammer a number of nice things, as like 

 and level as a handful of beans, and which will yield 

 him a precious quid pro quo, — may, in fact, " make 

 Shorthorns pay." By the same rule, if you go in reck- 

 lessly, and buy, without reference to a particular type, 

 something of all sorts, as you get a chance, provided 

 they are of the Bates or Booth sort, you will only have 

 to lament the low return when you clear out. 



What a nuisance these new floods are ! I had 

 thought that all danger of any more was gone ; but 

 there's no trusting those wild gullies where the Wye 

 rises ; and what rattles down upon us here as merely 

 a smart April shower will most probably up there be 



