166 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



was, doubtless, getting aware of what his customers 

 had long since found out, that there was no satisfaction 

 in carrying his new strains on. Himself endowed with 

 rare judgment and taste, he could generally attain suc- 

 cess ; but when it came to his elements (only just con- 

 glomerate and scarcely baked) being put into less 

 experienced hands, the sad fact occun-ed that no par- 

 ticular development could be relied upon to issue out. 

 It might be this shape, or that shape, or something of 

 all sorts. Hence, he wisely made a clearance, and will, 

 I expect, now be more fortunate in his prices, when his 

 customers find that the seedlings answer to the parent 

 plant. 



There is one disagreeable nuisance to which I am 

 subject. I don't know whether other Shorthorn breeders 

 suffer similarly. It is, that certain gentlemen, exceed- 

 ingly worthy in all respects but this I doubt not, come 

 and look over one's young bulls. They always select 

 the best, and ask the price. As a matter of course 

 they wince thereat, and reply coldly, " Mine is only a 

 common dairy herd ; I cannot aiford that." "Ah! then 

 I'll show you what will suit you at one-fourth the figure. 

 Here's a grand young animal, pure bred, but descended 

 from animals whose owners never took the trouble to 

 enter their stock in the ' Herd Book.' There now, he 

 is as good as any one I have shown you, only excepting 

 his having no recorded pedigree to show." Oh dear no, 

 not for Joseph at all ! The gentleman-buyer wants the 

 best of pedigrees, although his herd is but a dairy lot 

 of cows, and requires this cheap in consideration of 

 that fact. Just look at the logic of it ! Is it to be 

 wondered at that one has sometimes not patience 

 to reply to such application. He never calculates 



