Robevt BaTcewell. 
5 
years with such a master, the man was seldom found who 
desired to change his place. But the happy relations of master 
and servants at Dishley seem to have belonged to the traditions 
of the house of Bake well, for several of the people who re- 
mained with the last Robert Bakewell to about the close of his 
life had lived some years in his father's service. “ How long 
have you been here?” a visitor asked, in July, 1793, turning 
to William Arnold, the junior herdsman. “About twenty 
years” was the reply. “And you?” addressing the senior, 
John Breedon, who promptly answered : “ Since the King was 
crowned, sir ” — fully thirty-two years. William Peet, super- 
intendent of the horses, said he had served the family for nearly 
forty years, but had been away a few years and returned to 
Dishley. Others had been ten or twelve years in the service. 
Mr. Bakewell’s kindness to brute animals was proverbial, 
and being in constant practice at Dishley was rewarded with 
extreme docility in the farm animals. Powerful bulls of 
terrible presence, looking the more formidable for the immense 
horns distinguishing their breed, were led about by mere 
children. One writer says he saw an animal of elephantine 
bulk led about with a pack-thread by a boy of seven ; another, 
that a lad with a switch could single a bull out from his com- 
panions and guide him to any part of the farm by holding the 
switch to one side or the other to indicate the way ; and a 
third had been greatly amused by a little boy, five years old, 
mounted upon one of the big bulls, and so guiding him with the 
point of his switch. Similar instances of docility, resulting 
from unvarying kind treatment, were noticed in the stallions ; 
and throughout the live-stock departments of the Dishley farm 
confiding gentleness, as an effect, afforded the surest evidence of 
considerate and compassionate gentleness as the cause. On 
this subject Mr. Bakewell was far in advance of his day, for his 
genei'ous anger was kindled instantly by the sight or report of 
cruelties so often practised in the times when the sufferings of 
the inferior animals, however discreditable and degrading to man 
who inflicted them, were thought beneath the notice of the law. 
In quite early life, having developed to some extent his 
father’s desire to discover or learn better methods of husbandry 
than those of his predecessors, and thirsting for knowledge of 
what men were thinking and doing elsewhere, Bakewell often 
left his home to travel about England, seeing the different bi’eeds 
of farm stock, to find out the purposes for which the breeds 
severally were best suited, and the conditions under which they 
served those purposes ; his main object,, no doubt, being to 
ascertain what breeds would do best at Dishley, That such 
