THE SHORTHORN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume VII, Issue 233, 11 January 1889, Page 3

THE SHORTHORN.

~+» —^_ (Continued.)) For many .yeaSs previous to the 1810 Keltoa wde, Mr Bates had been breeding shorthorns by the Tyne side, wid bringing his beasts to seal© tests. Still he does not seem to aave struck out any especial herdline for himself till he took up his fancy for the •• Duchess" tribe. Charles Colling assured him that the cow which he bought in 1784 out of Stanwick Park was the best cow he ever had or ever saw, and sold him her great-granddaughter "Duchess " by "Daisy Belle" (186). She was the prelude to Mr Bates' purchase of -'Duchess Ist," by " Comet " (155), the only "Duchess" at the Ketton sale. "Belviders" (1706), of the, *• Princess n tribe, was the bull which j Mr Bates selected,to <( bring out the \ * Duchesses.' " He was small and plain, and with ratliei- rough shoulders, but as soft to? a mole in his touch. Mr Bates led the shorthorn ranks of the Eoyal Agricultural Society both at Oxford and Cambridge, and it was his lot to breed the second one-thousand-guinea bull, and to fashion the model of the moulds in which such cows as "Second Grand Duchess," "Oxford 15th," and "Duchess 78th" -.vere duly cast. The Booth family began at Studley about 1790 with " Teeswatovs " and "Twin Brother to Ben " (660), and lengthening the hind quarters, filling up the fore flank, and brooding with a view to that fine deup flesh and constitution which boars any amount of forcing, have been their special aim. Eichard Booth and Crofton might be said to have initiated the modern plan of keepingbeasts far more in the house, and preparing them special'y for shows. As far back as 1797 a Favourite (252) cow was sent over to America, and returning at the end of thirteen years, became the foundress of the Cambridge Eoses The Ohio Company purchased with a view to milk rather than beef, a feeling which has always made America incline more especially to the Bates' blood. To be Continued.