124 Saddle and Sirloin. 



less amazement, " Fd not have carried him home" 

 The General had bred from Mason as well as Col- 

 ling, but Mr. Grey did not care about the former, as 

 he thought him tricky and all for form, and that 

 his herd became hard in the touch and lacked con- 

 stitution. 



At Lord Althorp's suggestion he wrote the first 

 county essay (on " Northumberland and its Agricul- 

 ture") in the Royal Agricultural Journal. Mr. Grey's 

 intimacy with his lordship arose out of a constant in- 

 terchange of Leicesters and Shorthorns. The Wiseton 

 sheep were small and of Buckley blood, and crossed 

 well with Charles Colling's larger sheep, which were 

 then fast occupying the Scottish frontier. Mr. Grey 

 had let the rams of the cross for many years, and the 

 G wethers soon had plenty of butchers on their track. 

 At Wiseton seventy cows and heifers would generally 

 come up to the sunk fence, in front of the dining- 

 room, and Mr. Grey did not need much rousing for 

 "just another look, Grey!' It was his lordship's boast 

 that he had reformed his whole stock with Regent, 

 when he was condemned to the butcher as useless. 

 Nonpareil (370 guineas) did him no great good, and 

 he was " never really successful till he got the Chil- 

 tons." Sweet William, Orontes, Wiseton, which 

 figures in the picture of a " Quiet Day at Wiseton,'' 

 and Ranunculus (the sire of Belinda) were all leading 

 bulls, and so was Usurer, of which Lord Ducie said 

 that he " could give shoulders to anything." Lord 

 Ducie and Sir Charles Knightley were men of like 

 passions, but in Plenipo's year they couldn't resist the 

 Doncaster Cup Day, while Lord Althorp and Mr. 

 Grey went off to look over Mr. Champion's herd at 

 Blyth. Hunting was what Mr. Grey loved best, and 

 he enjoyed it much in his youth with the hounds of 

 Mr. Bailey of Mellerstein. We remember with what 

 keen delight he quoted to us the remark of an old 

 shepherd, upon the riding of one of his grandchildren : 



