The late William Torr. 
307 
Great farmers are like great actors, they live only in the 
memory of their cotemporaries, unless like Bakewell, Colling, 
Booth, Bates, and Jonas Webb, they stamp their names upon 
some tribe of live-stock. Thus it will doubtless be with William 
Torr, although his name has been before a constantly extending 
circle of agriculturists for nearly forty years ; for he went every- 
where, and wherever he went made himself heard and remem- 
bered by his ceaseless energy, his decided opinions, his caustic 
replies, his happy speeches, his perpetual flow of talk, rich in 
anecdote, and illustration of every agricultural question. 
" The first time I saw William Torr," writes a \ orkshire 
implement-maker, "was about forty years ago, at a dinner of 
the Highland Agricultural Society, at Berwick, where the Duke 
of Northumberland was in the chair ; he was sitting next to and 
carrying on an animated conversation with the Duke of Rox- 
burghe (Dukes were rarely seen at public gatherings in those 
days), and I never saw him look so well. He was a slim 
young man, with dark hair, a ruddy complexion, very well 
dressed, in a white waistcoat. His eyes sparkled with anima- 
tion, he so evidently enjoyed the pleasure of being able to teach 
a Duke something ; even then his voice was loud and con- 
fident, and he talked fluently and well. He came round the 
Showyard the next day, and looked at my stand of imple- 
ments, which had been so much appreciated that they had 
all been sold and paid for ; on healing this he expressed much 
surprise, for, in the high tone that great farmers held at that 
time towards implement-makers, he found many faults with 
everything. But that was his way ; to listen to him one would 
think that no implement-maker had ever produced anything 
he had not originally invented. I found afterwards that this 
depreciation did not prevent him from adopting the best imple- 
ments on his own farm when their utility was proved. At one 
time he had a great prejudice against iron ploughs, and professed 
to prefer those made under his own directions by the village 
blacksmith ; and he frequently declared before he adopted steam 
cultivation that it never could pay. 
" In his own neighbourhood he was for more than thirty years a 
great authority on every farming and breeding question, and was 
treated with as much deference as if he had been a landed squire 
in some counties. He was too arbitrary and rough in his tongue 
to be popular with his equals and inferiors ; but no stranger ever 
visited him at home that did not go away delighted with his 
vigorous galloping way of showing his farm, and with his over- 
flowing hospitality." 
An agricultural author writes : " I made Mr. William Torr's 
acquaintance about the year 184G, he was then in the prime of 
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