AND OTHER SKETCHES 303 



THORNCLIFFE STOCK FARM. 



One thousand acres of upland, meadows and forest- 

 crowned hills for a background, go to make up a noble 

 estate, and when this is located on the outskirts of a city 

 of three hundred thousand population, its natural beauty 

 is rendered still more attractive by its close proximity to 

 a great commercial centre like Toronto. The Thorncliffe 

 Stock Farm is well known all over Canada. It has been 

 the home, not alone of many noted thoroughbreds, but 

 also of prize-winning Clydesdales, which have gained 

 high honors in Canadian and American show rings; 

 Jersey cattle, Shropshire sheep and Yorkshire pigs. At 

 one time flocks of sheep roamed o'er the pastures of 

 Thorncliffe — animals so choicely bred that buyers were 

 attracted from all parts of the continent, but the damage 

 caused by hungry, roaming dogs, was so great and so 

 difficult to guard against that the owner was reluctantly 

 compelled to relinquish one of his favorite enterprises. 

 When individual members of a flock of sheep are worth 

 all the way from $100 to $600 the damage caused by 

 sheep-killing dogs can easily foot up to a large amount, 

 and though men were employed to guard these flocks by 

 day and carefully house them at night, yet it was found 

 impossible to secure their safety and their breeding was 

 discontinued. 



The premier thoroughbred sire at Thorncliffe is the 

 imported English horse Orme Shore, by the world- 

 famous Orme (sire of Flying Fox, which sold for $187,- 

 000, the highest price ever paid for a horse). Virginia 

 Shore, the dam of Orme Shore, is by John Davis, by 

 Voltigeur, out of Distant Shore by Hermit. Orme is by 

 Ormonde, out of Angelica, by Galopin. 



Judging by the success of the get of Orme Shore at the 

 last spring meeting of the Ontario Jockey Club, it is Imt 



