32 
The Value of Pedigree. 
prices are not unlike those recently paid in Australia for Merino 
sheep. We read of 1,000 guineas for the bull Comet, sold by 
Charles Colling in 1810. History repeats itself, and at the 
sale of the Queen’s Shorthorns at Windsor on March 3 of 
the present year, 1,000 guineas was given by the President 
of the Koyal Agricultural Society for the bull Neiu Year's Gift. 
It is hardly necessary to refer to horses and their pedigrees, 
performances, and value. It is fresh in everybody’s memory 
that Doncaster, just dead at eighteen years old, was sold for 
14,000 guineas, whilst Blair Athol was sold by auction for 
12,500 guineas, and Ormonde, grandson of Doncaster, went 
abroad at 15,000 guineas. So much is the blood of Ormonde 
esteemed, that it has lately been proposed to form a company 
with a capital of 30,000L to bring him back again, though I 
hope the effort will not succeed. 
An interesting side-light is thrown upon the subject of 
prices in the past by a quaint catalogue of a century ago. It 
bears the title, “ Particulars of the Breeding Stock, late the 
Property of Mr. Robert Fowler, of Little Rollright, in the 
County of Oxford, deceased, comprising the Names of the several 
Purchasers, their Places of Residence, and the Price of each 
respective Lot, which was sold on the Premises, the 29th, 30th, 
and 31st days of March, 1791, by R. Parry, of Shipston-upon- 
Stower, Auctioneer.” At the foot of the title-page appears the 
caution : “ N.B. — To prevent Impositions on the Public, none 
will be genuine but those signed with the Hand Writing of 
Bd. Parry,” and the auctioneer’s signature is well preserved in 
the ink of the eighteenth century. The subjoined extracts from 
the preface, which is dated May 14, 1791, seem to me to be 
worth reproducing here ; — 
From the following account and extraordinary prices I am persuaded 
the acknowledged superiority of Mr. Fowlee’s Stock will fully appear. I 
question if tradition or history can furnish such another account in Europe. 
The single circumstance of so many people, desirous of improving their 
breed of Cattle, assembling themselves together on the occasion (from almost 
every county in England) is sufficient ground to evince what reputation this 
stock has obtained with the public ; while the great prices that were offered 
at the Hammer, and the much greater offered for many of them afterwards, 
is abundantly sufficient Xo prove their high estimation of it. 
I will readily admit it frequently is the case at Sales by Auction, that 
people are excited by opposition, or encouraged by the coincident opinions 
of others to exceed their intentions. This may be termed a capricious 
bravery or implicit confidential boldness resulting from the judgment or 
conduct of their competitors : but where as at this sale, most of the Cows, 
and many of the Bulls, might have been resold upon the spot at considerably 
higher prices, and I believe none repurchased at their first cost, no such im- 
putation of misconduct can apply. Two Heifers, of only two years old, 
being sold the first day out of their turps, were at the request of the com- 
