The Gordon Setter 211 
kennel called the Highland also sent dogs to New York and contended 
against the Dwight dogs throughout the West, the best of this kennel being 
Highland Yola. 
Dr. Dixon did not make any additions to his kennel for several years, 
and his entries gradually became fewer, until 1896 saw the last of what 
was probably the strongest kennel of Gordons ever got together. In their 
best days they certainly beat everything and it took the best of several 
kennels to peg them back eventually. The leading exhibitors were now 
reduced to Mr. Blossom in New York, and the Dwight and Highland 
Kennels in the West, no less than twenty-two of the recorded eighty-four 
winners of reserve or better during 1897 being owned by one or other of 
these three kennels. This of course made it difficult for the small men to 
win, and as a natural result we find in succeeding years that competition 
dwindled to such an extent that it was only by the hardest work on the part 
of the Gordon Setter Club that the same number of classes were offered 
as for English and Irish setters. In 1900 there were but fifty-five recorded 
winners of reserve or better, and as the Western kennels did not send to 
the Eastern shows that year their absence still further reduced competition, 
and the best dog in the East that season was Mr. Blossom’s Doc, while: 
Heather Lad still led among the Western setters. 
Mr. Blossom retired in 1900, after having not only played a conspicuous. 
part in the prize lists, but having by his untiring energy in insisting upon 
“equal rights for the Gordons” done a great deal of work for others for 
which he has never been given full credit. We then had a year or two of 
the Vancroft Kennel, with a grand specimen, even if he was going grey, in 
Duke of Edgeworth as leader. Much as we thought of some of the dogs 
of the past, we can hardly name one that, both fit and well, could positively 
have beaten the Duke of Edgeworth. He possessed quality, character 
and conformation in a marked degree, and must have been a grand dog in 
his prime, for even when he was showing grey about the muzzle, as was the 
case when exhibited here, he won the highest honours at New York, Pitts- 
burg, Buffalo, and again at New York at the Ladies’ Kennel Association 
show. He was defeated at Chicago, but not on his merits, the setter judging: 
at that show being very much criticised. 
To make up in some measure for departed fanciers in the East, 1gor 
saw the advent of Mr. B. W. Andrews, who may be said to be a Philadelphian,, 
although a resident of Woodbury. Starting modestly Mr. Andrews has in: 
