Mr. B or tons Leicester s. 219 



A ride of twelve miles further up the fertile Vale of 

 Rydal lands us at the station for Barton-le-Street, the 

 home of the Yorkshire champion of the Leicesters, 

 Mr. John Borton. He learnt his lesson as flockmaster 

 in a good school under his grandfather, Mr. William 

 Key, at Northolme and Musley Bank near Malton. 

 The old gentlemen, who died in 1832, and whose 

 portrait is preserved to us on the canvas of Jackson, 

 with his hand on the head of one of his greyhounds, 

 was along with Mr. Marshall of East Newton, Mr. 

 Dowker of Salton, Mr. Kendall of Ness, and Mr. 

 Richardson of Lund Cote, a leading Leicester breeder 

 in the Malton district. On his grandfather's death, 

 Mr. Borton's uncle, who succeeded to the property, pre- 

 sented him with ten ewes out of the hundred which 

 composed the ram breeding portion of the flock. 

 These he took to Habton, where he commenced in 

 1833 to " paddle his own canoe," and eventually settled 

 at Barton-le-Street, five miles from Malton * 



* In 1834 Mr. Borton bought a score of ewes at Mr. Dowker's sale, 

 and began as a ram-breeder at once, while his father pursued the same 

 business at Kirby Misperton. His fourth year of farm life found our 

 young flockmaster in the show-field ; and the two firsts and a second for 

 shearling rams at Hackness and Thirsk were the best proof that he had 

 not reckoned prematurely on his strength. When the Yorkshire Agri- 

 cultural Show met at York in 1839, the hero of these two firsts was beaten 

 by a sheep which Mr. Wetherell bought at Mr. Edwardes's sale ; but the 

 much-coveted head prize for shearlings was won at Leeds the following 

 year. In 1842-46 he showed very little, but brought up his reserves in 

 full strength when the Royal came to York, and he had 75/. of cash to 

 receive from the secretary, as first with the shearlings and aged sheep, 

 and first for the local prize. Since then his entries have seldom been 

 lacking at the Royal or the Yorkshire ; and with Sanday, Creswell, 

 Inge, Wiley, Jordan, Turner, Pawlett (whose Chester ram he bought), 

 and "all the swells" in the field, he has never shrunk from battle, and 

 has seen the winning rosettes over his pen nearly two hundred times. 

 At Doncaster, in 1865, he had two firsts and two seconds for rams, and 

 a first for gimmers, and his winnings in one year reached 170/. 



As time went on he kept reinforcing his ewe flock from Mr. Allen's 

 of Malton, and bought a score of gimmers from Sir Tatton and Mr. 

 Sanday. For five seasons old Sledmere was his mainstay, and before 

 he purchased him (for 25 guineas) he had sent ewes to him. The 

 blood was partly his own, as he gave 28 guineas for his grandsire, then 



