30 
Robert Bakewell. 
they were “all rickety,” another that they were “all fools.” 
Bakewell and his admirers were of a different opinion, and con- 
sidered the sort much improved under the working of his 
system. There was at Dishley an experiment-sty, where pigs, 
nine at a time in sets of three, were weighed, fed on weighed 
food, and so forth, the weights duly chalked on a board, and the 
complete notes finally transferred to Mr. Bakewell’s book of 
experiments and results. 
Mr. Bakewell’s farming and breeding do not appear to have 
proved, in the aggregate, financially successful. Several autho- 
rities refer to straitened circumstances, and one writer goes so 
far as to say that Mr. Bakewell had become bankrupt in November 
1776. As neither his flock nor his herd was ever dispersed dur- 
ing his lifetime, but both were bequeathed by him to his nephew, 
Mr. Honeybourn, who for some years after continued to breed 
at Dishley the descendants from his uncle’s original animals, the 
story of failure needs confirmation and explanation. It is clear 
that at the time of Mr. Bakewell’s death the Dishley herd com- 
prised lineal representatives of Old Comely, the cow calved at 
Canley in or about the year 1765 and purchased as one of the 
original pair of heifers from Mr. Webster. His lavish hospi- 
tality, however, was enough to account for some measure of 
pecuniary trouble. 
Thus, in each department of farm practice, we have traced, 
from widely scattered fragments of evidence, the work of Robert 
Bakewell, of whom it was justly said by the author of the 
memoir published on the announcement of his death, that 
“ every branch of agricultural art was more or less indebted to 
him, his fortunate genius, and his original mind.” While we 
remember the benefits which he has conferred upon the nations 
in the substantial results of his work, his breed of sheep having 
effected, in various degrees, through many well-known crosses 
and how many unacknowledged crosses no man can tell, the 
improvement of other breeds, we must remember to his credit 
the wider distribution of the good originated in his discovery of 
a shorter and surer way than before was known to enlist in 
man’s service the laws and powers of nature. Had he been a 
man of higher education, we should have been the richer, 
no doubt, by his contributions to the literature of agriculture. 
But like other men of bis educational level, he was more apt 
to act well than to tell clearly how he acted. There he was, 
perhaps wisely, silent. Yet others gleaned, and indirectly told, 
the secrets he was accused of studiously concealing. The cor- 
relation of form and certain propensities was one discovery upon 
