i 72 Saddle and Sirloin. 



Prices may at times have been wild and fanciful, 

 and 250 guineas may seem an extravagant bull-hire, 

 but still buying good beasts and holding to approved 

 tribes, even at a large outlay, is the most profitable 

 policy in the long run. There is some method in the 

 " madness" which would give 125 guineas for " Oxford 

 nth" as a calf, 250 guineas for her as a three-year- 

 old, and 500 guineas for her as a cow, on the only three 

 occasions that this dam of " Fifth Duke of Oxford" — 

 the first prize aged bull at Chester, and a 300-guinea 

 purchase at six months old — was brought into the 

 sale-ring. When we look back to the calm foresight 

 of the Brothers Colling ; the courageous confidence of 

 Mason, the Rev. Henry Berry, and Whitaker ; " Tommy 

 Bates," and all his animated lectures on touch and 

 form in his pastures, or on the show-ground ; " A 

 quiet day at Wiseton ;" the dashing cow and heifer 

 contests between Towneley, Booth, and Douglas ; the 

 victories of " Duchess 77th" and " The Twins ;" the 

 dispersion of the late Jonas Webb's herd at the steady, 

 paying average of 55/. 10s. for 145 ; the brilliant 

 gathering which appraised the " Butterflies ;" the 

 8180/. at Willis's Rooms for seventeen Grand Dukes 

 and Duchesses ; and the two May Meetings of '6? 

 in Kent and Essex, and then scan the result in so 

 many fairs and pastures, we may well feel that short- 

 horns have repaid all the money, thought, and labour 

 which have been expended upon them. Still, in one 

 way only can their supremacy be made permanent — 

 by always keeping in mind the rule by which our first 

 breeders have been guided, that " a good beast must 

 be a good beast, however it has come ; but that it is to 

 pedigrees alone that we can trust for succession."*" 



* A great portion of this chapter is extracted from a Prize Essay on 

 Shorthorns (II. II. D.) in the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal fax 

 1865. 



