492 Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 
prepared to prove — as to wliat had occurred with reference to this very cake ; 
because I think my learned friend might have done very well to have said a 
few words about that. He knows by the Eeport what the charge made against 
him is, and certainly I did anticipate that he would have gone into this matter 
or given you some explanation about it, but he leaves you in utter and absolute 
Ignorance with regard to what had occurred, and for aught that his case has 
disclosed to you, this article of the 11th March might be the most gratuitous 
libel that ever man penned. Indeed, that is the reason, of course, why my 
friend leaves it in that shape ; but the facts of the case were really these : It is 
quite true Mr. Ayre had made a contract with Mr. Wells, who is a gentleman 
living in Yorkshire, and a member of the Agricultural Society. He farms 
very largely, and has done so for a great number of years. He has three 
farms in Yorkshire, two of which you willlind to be of considerable importance 
with reference to the inquiry you have in hand. One of them is a farm called 
Booth Ferry, near Goole, consisting of some 600 acres ; the other is called 
Airmyn Pastures, some two or three miles from Booth Ferry, and which is a 
larm of about 400 acres. Mr. Wells himself resides at Booth Ferry, but both 
Booth Ferry and the Airmyn Pastures Farm are under his superintendence, 
he having people under him at Booth Ferry to manage there tlie feeding and 
care of the stock, and having a bailiff at Airmyn Pastures to do the same there. 
Mr. Wells — I do not want to praise him to you — but he is a gentleman of con- 
siderable reputation as an agriculturist ; he has a very excellent breed of pure 
Shorthorns, and he takes veiy great pains indeed in managing them. I men- 
tion these things, in order to show the care which is likely to be exercised in 
the management and feeding of his cattle. The course of dealing with them is 
this :— The beasts are taken up some time in the month of September ; 
they are then stall-fed and fattened, according as to whether they are 
for show or sale, or whether they arc cows, and so on. They are fed 
on until the month of March, when they are sold. This course he 
has continued for a great many years, and he has fed the beasts with cake 
precisely in the same manner as he fed them with cake on the 15th of 
February, without, I believe he will tell you, any accident ever occurring at 
any previous period of time. The mode of feeding adopted is one well calcu- 
lated to promote the health of the beasts. It is one with which it will be 
impossible for my friends to find any fault at all, and I am prepared to prove, 
if a question is made about it, that it is a judicious mode, and one in which 
it is impossible to look for, or account for, what happened on the I6th February. 
On the 12th February as you have it now in evidence, two tons of this cake, 
which, as you heard from Mr. Ayre, had been late in delivery because Mr. 
Kidd's mill appears to have been imder great pressure — I suppose they were in 
a great hurry to get rid of their goods — two tons of this cake were, under this 
pressure, supplied to Mr. Wells, one toji of which was taken to the Booth 
Feny Farm, and the other ton to the Airmyn Pastures Farm, three miles off. 
The Booth Ferry Farm was under the superintendence of one cla^s of persons 
the Airmyn Pastures rmder the superintendence of another. There were 
26 beasts at that time at Booth Ferry, being fed for the purposes of sale and 
show in the following season, and the mode of feeding adopted was this : — The 
days were short February days ; the beast had his feed of turnips or potatoes 
he was cleaned, and then at Booth Ferry he had in the afternoon, about half- 
past one or two, just immediately after dinner, 7 lbs. of cake. At Airmyn 
Pastures, where they had a difibrent sort of stock, the mode of feeding was 
different, for there the animals had their cake in the early morning, about 
8 o'clock. They first had chop])ed hay and clover, and then thuy had their 
cake ; alter which they had anotlier dose of potatoes or mangolds, or souiethinR 
of that sort, and then no more cake that day. That course had been adopted 
for years as the mode of feeding at Booth Ferry as well as Airmyn Pastures 
