92 riELD AND FERN. 



classes pretty well against all comers^ and the 

 laird of Langwell swept every premium offered for 

 Cheviots. 



At Glasgow, in ^50, Maynard^s Crusade was the 

 Voltigeur of the Shorthorns ; and Belville reappeared 

 with four more years on his head, and very little 

 patchiness in proportion, as the winner of a sweep- 

 stakes with twenty entries. Booth, Wilson, and Towne- 

 ley fought hard in the female classes, and even Fife 

 sent forty-three of its blacks. It seemed an expiring 

 county effort, as only fourteen came to Perth in ^53, 

 and they were seen in the lists no more. Booth's 

 Windsor was at Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Douglas- 

 was there with his Captain Balco and Rose of Sum- 

 mer to meet Booth and all comers. With Invernesfi, 

 in ^56, the biennial system, which had gone on ever 

 since M<8, gave way once more to the annual. At 

 Glasgow, the next year, it is well remembered how 

 the Duke of Athole mustered his clan, and marched 

 to meet the Queen of the Netherlands ; how closely 

 Elliot and Brydon contested the Cheviot classes ; 

 and how John o^Groat, the first of Mr. Stirling's 

 three Royal roans, came from Keir with his Salis- 

 bury honours on his head. In ^58 the Granite City 

 had its fourth visit. It was a grand sheep year at Edin- 

 burgh when the Richmond Southdowns were in front, 

 and Cockburn beat Wiley in the Leicester tups, and 

 then had to go down before those rare Brandsby gim- 

 mers. "The Duchess twins'' came to Dumfries in 

 ^60, to be beaten by Douglas's Clarionet, and thus. 



