OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 229 



foundations in 1837 with bulls from Barclay of Ury (80). 

 For twenty years he scoured all Britain for suitable foundation 

 stock, the bulls and bloods of all prominent breeders being given 

 their trial. Not until 1860 was the method of Bakewell and 

 Bates thought of favorably, and that only when Champion of 

 England, of their own breeding, completely outsired rival bulls 

 brought in from other herds. The really constructive period 

 at Sittyton was thereupon entered, to terminate only with Amos 

 Cruickshank's death in 1889, after fifty-two years of active 

 industry with his favored tribes. 



The tale of his change of policy is a romance of chance. Be- 

 fore 1860 the Cruickshanks wrought with the blood that had 

 builded fame for others, the Torr-bred Fairfax Royal, Lincoln- 

 shire's great bull Matadore, Towneley's Plantagenet, Booth's 

 Buckingham, Tanqueray's The Baron, and Lord Bathurst, Master 

 Butterfly 2d and Lord Raglan. Many there were who insist that 

 the latter bull might have been the cornerstone of an even greater 

 success than that which arose from his Champion of England, 

 had Amos Cruickshank been prepared to prosecute the Bake- 

 wellian scheme when Lord Raglan was in the herd, but his Cale- 

 donian caution had not yet reached the decisive point for such 

 a step. In 1858 the end of a herd bull's breeding cycle forced him 

 to seek a good red yearling. An appeal to his friend Wilkinson 

 of Lavendar fame, brought only a suggestion that he use the 

 eight-year-old roan Lancaster Comet, a bull of great service in 

 his Lenton herd. This did not meet Mr. Cruickshank's require- 

 ment but since further search was unsuccessful, he ordered the 

 bull shipped. The first impression of the bull's "great head and 

 horns lowering upon him over the side of the truck" so disap- 

 pointed him that Lancaster Comet was relegated to his other farm 

 at Clyne and turned into the pasture with a lot of cows that had 

 been shy breeders. Late that fall the bull contracted rheumatism 

 so seriously that he could profitably only be sent to the butcher. 



