142 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



her not exhibiting a black nose, a tint to which we 

 always understood him to be averse until the recent 

 turn of his Oxford studies. 



March, 1868. 



And so I am roused from my literary slumber by a 

 round shot falling right at my feet and splashing me 

 with splintered fragments. A printed enclosure with 

 the Clitheroe postmark ! I regret if a playful remark 

 respecting black noses and Culshaw's " Oxford studies '' 

 has given annoyance to a gentleman so urbane as I 

 have uniformly found Mr. Eastwood. Opportunely 

 enough, however, it brings one to the discussion of a 

 subject which it is high time to have set at rest. The 

 black nose upon a pedigree Shorthorn is an unpardon- 

 able blemish at present in the eyes of the breeding 

 world. That it should be so, thanks to the Yankee, 

 who objected of old to any but the "raw nose:" else 

 what harm could that be which is simply a relic of 

 ancestral inheritance from the celebrated Galloway 

 heifer and Chillingham herd, which were used so freely 

 in CoUings' alloy, and which is continually reappearing 

 in the oldest and best strains (some, great Royal-prize- 

 takers) of the pedigree stock, as every breeder knows? 

 Names I will not give, as I have no wish to depreciate 

 any gentleman's herd. I will only remark that Belve- 

 dere had the defect latent in his composition, and that 

 the Chilton cows abounded with it. The oldest breeders 

 in private converse make no secret of this objectionable 

 nasal tint cropping up occasionally under most unlikely 

 circumstances. From a scientific knowledge of the dip 

 of strata, Sir R. Murchison amidst the Ural Mountains 



