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, TanqueErRay’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. 
