OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 195 



THE YORKSHIRE SQUIRE AT HIS BEST 



76. Situated in the fertile valley of the Swale in late eighteenth 

 century Yorkshire, Thomas Booth's Killerby estate cradled the 

 birth of that second dominant strain of Shorthorns to carry the 

 standard of the red-white-and-roan to all corners of the earth. 

 His foundation animals were acquired even prior to 1790, but he 

 first tapped the Colling source about this year, when he secured 

 from Robert Colling (94) the roan bull Twin Brother to Ben 

 and one of his sons, both of his Hubback heritage. Unlike the 

 famous founder of the Duchess tribes, his younger compatriot 

 Thomas Bates (74), Booth felt no necessity to utilize the Col- 

 ling females, and thereby stamped himself both more original 

 and more independent than his worthy colleague. Robust consti- 

 tution and a wealth of flesh-making capacity were his ideals. His 

 cattle must be excellent grazers, but, from the first, breadth of 

 back and thickness of loin outweighed all considerations of lacta- 

 tive persistency. 



Mr. Booth's early bulls of Colling blood were followed by 

 others from the same source, Suworrow, Pilot, Marshall Beresford 

 and Albion. The latter bull in particular was successful in 

 establishing that low down blockiness and round-ribbed cover that 

 so distinguished the later Booth tribes. In the light of Thomas 

 Bates, Mr. Booth was not a pedigree mater, but based his selec- 

 tions almost wholly on the types of animals themselves. Excep- 

 tional pains were taken in the introduction of the Colling stock 

 to overcome defects and to fix the desirable beefing characteristics, 

 and the resulting improvement led Mr. Booth gradually to be- 

 come independent of the Colling support. With the opening of 

 the new century, the Bakewell (78) formula was applied to his 

 Fairholme tribes with eminent success, and a little later to the 

 descendants of the yellowish red and white cow found on the 

 Darlington market in 1797, Halnaby by Lame Bull (359). 



