280 
Rise and Progress of Hereford Cattle. 
Mr. Frank Quartly in the " red and all red " Devon, as you roam 
away to the west. 
When the century was young, the Hereford breeders' pride 
was wont to develop itself in giving show -yard challenges. 
Mr. Meek, of Lichfield, was as unlucky in 1812, when he 
accepted the Ryall defi to show a score of Hereford cows against 
as many Long-horns, as he had been two years before, when he 
himself threw down a challenge to the same amount to show 
single bulls, and dare not meet Mr. Walker's " Crickneck " 
(175). Mr. Price did not shrink from giving the Short-horn men 
the same offer in 1839, with twenty cows and a bull, when 
Mr. Bates was flushed with his Oxford victories; but the Kirk- 
Levington philosopher did not come to terms, and the stipulated 
month passed over without any results. Mr. Ben Tomkins did 
not care to send cows from home on such a mission ; but he 
offered to pitch " twenty for a hundred " against all comers at 
Hereford. The Rev. Mr. Smythies of The Lynch, " a singular 
grand divine " (so Cheviot shepherds phrase it) among Here- 
fords, as the Rev. Henry Berry was among Short-horns, felt 
anxious to show five times as many of all ages for the same sum ; 
and Mr. Weyman was ready to bring out his white-faced bull 
" Stockton " (237) against all England for five times as much. 
Such praiseworthy pugnacity met with no response, and the 
breeders had to content themselves with a more solid proof of 
excellence, in the prices made by the herd of Mr. Ben Tomkins 
after his death in 1819. Twenty-eight breeding animals averaged 
152/., and Lord Talbot, who always stood very stoutly by the 
sort, gave 262/. 15s. for a cow, and considerably more for 
a bull. 
Long before this, Mr. Westcar, of Creslow, had set the hall- 
mark upon the Hereford bullocks. He is said to have first 
appeared at the Hereford October Fair in 1779, and it was with 
beasts purchased there for forty years in succession that he won 
so many first prizes from the very commencement of the Smith- 
field Club Show in 1799, when cattle of all breeds came into 
competition, and were merely classed as light, middle, and 
heavy weights. He principally owed his success to the light 
or Tully greys, and one of his most celebrated six-year-old 
winners, whose dead weight was 268 stone of 8 lbs. was from 
this stock, and by a white-faced bull. It was some time before 
Mr. Tully felt quite reconciled to the fall of light-grey calves by 
this sire, but Mr. T. A. Knight of Downton Castle fancied 
them, and a tribe which Mr. Duckham has described as 
" smaller in size, more even and firmer in their flesh, and with 
an upward tendency of horn, showing that a commingling had 
taken place with the light and dark grey," became known as 
