Bakew ell's Longhorns. 141 



general or statesman has never lacked the love of a 

 biographer ; but the thoughts and labours of men 

 who lived " remote from cities," and silently built up 

 an improved race of sheep or cattle, whose influence 

 was to be felt in every market, have had no adequate 

 record. One slight sketch in the Gentleman s Magazine 

 is nearly all that remains to us. We can go back, 

 through its guidance, to the days when Bakewell was 

 a living name, and Dishley the head-quarters to which 

 all the best breeders of farm stock made resort. The 

 scene rises up through the dim vista of more than a 

 hundred years. There are the willow clumps which 

 were cut on a seven years' rotation ; the water mea- 

 dows, which grew four grass crops in the season ; the 

 mimic Dutch canal, which supplied the sluices and 

 carried boats laden with produce and manure between 

 different parts of the farm, and on whose sluggish 

 stream turnips were floated down to the stock, and 

 washed in the course of their sail ! " Two Pounder " 

 is brought out by the shepherd, with all the respect 

 due to such a patriarch of the long-wools. Will Peet 

 is on parade with the black cart stallion ; and John 

 Breeder and Will Arnold, hazel wand in hand, have 

 gathered the herd into a corner of the Long Pasture, 

 and listen eagerly for any word that may be dropped 

 about their favourites. In the business room there 

 are not only skeletons but pickled carcases of sheep, 

 whose points were most after their breeder's heart ; 

 but he shows with no less relish some beef joints, the 

 relics of his " Old Comely," which died at twenty-six, 

 and the outside fat of a sirloin fully four inches thick. 



The latter were his Longhorn trophies, and no man 

 could boast of a herd with deeper flesh and lighter 

 offal. In his eyes the breed was fated to represent 

 the roast beef of Old England for ever and aye ; and 

 the thought that the very glory of their heads would 

 be objected to as taking up too much room in the 

 strawyards, and that a race with shorter horns and 



