40 
The Value of Pedigree. 
These, it may be noted, are by no means the highest prices that 
have been given for pedigree Shorthorns. It will be remembered 
■ that a much higher price (4,500 guineas) was given by Lord 
Fitzhardinge for the bull Bake of Connaught, and large as was 
that sum, I believe he paid his Lordship back the amount given 
and a very high interest besides. It is reported, indeed, that 
he made or earned 7,000 guineas, and improved the Berkeley 
herd into the bargain. Again, some of our breeders went over 
to America and gave much higher prices than those realised at 
the highest Holker sale and brought the cattle back to England, 
though I fear they were not remunerated for their plucky 
enterprise. 
All must agree that since purity of blood was first taken up 
by breeders of Shorthorns, — and with purity of blood, at all 
events at first, symmetry of form, quality (that is good handling), 
robustness of constitution, and other essential points were com- 
bined — the common stock of the country has very greatly 
improved. Within my own recollection it is difficult to call to 
mind a greater contrast than that afforded by the cattle now 
seen in Gloucestershire, both on the Hills and in the Vale, whether 
steers for fattening or heifers and cows for the dairy, as com- 
pared with those of forty yeai’s ago. And does not this change, 
this extraordinary change, owe its origin and its progress to the 
pure-bred bulls brought in the first instance to Tortworth by 
the late Lord Ducie, and since then to other landlords and to 
some tenant farmers who would not be denied, but formed herds 
of pure-bred Shorthorns for themselves, from which herds bulls 
filtered, as it were, into every tenant farmer’s herd in the 
county ? 
As in Gloucestershire — and, by the way, this breeding of 
pure cattle had been going on in the northern counties of 
Cumberland, Durham, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and 
Yorkshire, for some time prior to the epoch I am speaking of, 
with good results equally impressive — so, all over the country, 
the same indisputable good effect has been brought about, not 
only with Shorthorns, but with every other breed of cattle. 
Nothing can be more striking than the differences seen in the 
cattle which now come from Ireland as compared with those 
which came but a few years ago ; and with help from the State 
as to pedigree bulls, which the fortunate Irish farmers are 
receiving, a still greater improvement will show itself. 
I need refer but briefly to the excessive value which some 
few years ago Shorthorns attained, this enhancement being 
much stimulated by the determination of our brethren across the 
Atlantic, both in the United States and in Canada, as well as 
