Rise and Progress of Hereford Cattle. 
287 
sale-book) for twenty of his Hereford prize oxen between 1799 
and 1811. These bullocks passed their time, between Hereford 
October fair and the block, in Creslow Great Field, whose 323 
acres 3 rods and 2 perches can carry 220 bullocks and 200 ewes 
with ease. No pastures develop beasts more quickly, and since 
Mr. Westcar's day, the " Great Field " has fjenerally been 
stocked with Herefords. When Mr. C. S. Read, M.P., wrote his 
Prize Essay on Bucks Farming a few years ago, he found 90 
Herefords among the 140 head at Fawley Court and Littimer in 
the same district. " Putlowes Beef" also owes much of its 
fame to them, and its " 98 acres of rich deep loam on strong clay." 
The Lubbenham and Great Bowden clays carry them on well in 
Leicestershire, and Glooston feeds them as fast as the noted 
" One Hundred Acre " by the Welham side ; but the Leicester- 
shire men stock harder than they used to do, and send them 
off quicker and not so ripe in condition. ' The Gentleman's 
Magazine ' does not tel 1 us whether they were the chosen ones, 
when a party of Midland graziers met, and each determined to 
present his best ox to Sir Arthur Wellesley after the victory at 
Salamanca, but they and the white-faced runts now form the 
staple of the Midland beef supplies to Smithfield. 
The admirers of rival breeds are very apt to exalt their horn 
at the expense of each other, and hence all comparisons must 
be received with caution. It is rare, indeed, to find a man of 
such strictly catholic mind, that either in judging or experi- 
mentalising he is not in some measure fettered by a foregone 
conclusion. However, there is no doubt that Herefords have 
given the other breeds many " a fair, flat fall " in the Smithfield 
Club lists. Still Creslow is a good deal nearer London than 
Durham, and the northern graziers would hardly relish all the 
risks of a walk to the coast as well as of shipment, and a long 
and perilous voyage in a sailing-vessel, for the chance of a 
small prize. " We can kill our own Christmas beef in Masham," 
Avas the proud reply of a Yorksliireman, when we once asked 
him in railroad days, if a very grand roan in a close was meant 
for London. Be this as it may, the Herefords took a long lead 
from the foundation of the Smithfield Club, and up to 1851 
inclusive, (after which period the different breeds were shown 
in distinct classes) they had won 185 bullock prizes, or only 
five less than the Short-horns, and all the other breeds put toge- 
ther. The Short-horns made up their lee-way considerably 
in the females, and taking the breeds by themselves, during 
those fifty-three years, the Herefords are represented by 207 prize 
takers, and the Short-horns by 174. At Smithfield the Herefords 
put the finishing stroke to the old era in 1851, by winning the 
gold medals with Mr. Longmore's steer, and Mr. Druce's Short-horn 
