At the port of Riga there are received by water about 66,000 chetwerts and 2,000 sacks of flour, 490,000 chetwerts of grain, and 6,000 chetwerts of meal. The quantity arriving there by land it is impossible to determine. Of the receipts of grain in the other Baltic ports we may form some estimate by the extent of the shipments which, excluding St. Petersburg and Riga, are about 210,000 chetwerts.

The shipments from places on the western frontiers of Russia may average about 146,000 chetwerts. In the south the most important commerce in grain

is carried on by the Black Sea and the Sea of Azoff. The shipments through these channels are to the extent of 1,500,000 chetwerts of wheat, 38,000 of rye, 50,000 of barley, 20,000 of oats, and about 5,000 of peas. But in years when there is a great demand in the south of Europe the shipments can be largely increased. Thus, in 1847 Odessa alone exported 2,798,183 chetwerts of wheat, 333,876 of rye, 85,115 of other grain, and 23,610 of flour-making a total of 3,250,784 chetwerts, representing a gross value of £4,200,000.

What, then, are the medical plants comprised in the natural food of our cattle? What are the medicinal or active principles of such plants? And what are the functions such principles perform in the animal economy?

Owing to the very limited progress which organic chemistry has made in the analyses of the plants consumed by cattle as natural food on the one hand, and in the analyses of the beef, mutton, and pork into which such natural food is converted on the other hand, only a very general answer can be given to these three questions, especially the latter two. As to the first, the conclusion, in a general sense, is manifest; for as all plants contain medicinal principles, it consequently follows that all the plants eaten by cattle are medical plants. It is only, however, when plants possess active medicinal principles in sufficient quantity to produce certain observable effects upon individual organs—as the kidney, the liver, or any other specific function-that they are acknowledged as medicinal, and are adopted into the Materia Medica of the medical profession. Thus oak-bark contains a large per-centage of astringent principle, and is consequently adopted into the Materia Medica; whereas many grasses contain the same astringent principle, but in so small a percentage as to be unsuited for medical use, and are therefore not adopted. Along with astringent principle, other barks possess aperient and diuretic properties, as the bark of the ash and elm, and are adopted; but the grasses that contain similar properties, but in small quantity, are not adopted. Again, many of the condimental plants of our natural pastures that are eaten in small quantity by cattle, and relished by them as condiment, are adopted into the Materia Medica, because the percentage of active principles is sufficient to produce specific action. Thus tangy is a bitter tonic diuretic, and is eaten by sheep, but shunned by the horse and ox. Tormentil possesses even more astringent principle than oak bark, and is eaten by sheep and pigs. There is, in short, a long list of medical plants possessing astringent bitter tonic, aperient, diuretic, and diaphoretic properties, that are eaten, but only in small quantity at a time, the purposes they serve in the dietary of cattle being evidently condimental; indeed, there are very few medical plants that are not comprised in the natural food of our domesticated animals.

With regard to the peculiar functions which the different medicinal principles perform in the animal economy, such as tannic and gallic acid, bitter extractive matter, &c., little is yet known, chemically speaking; but that the all-wise Creator has ́given them a chemical purpose to serve is manifest from the fact that when the food of cattle is deficient of those principles they lose health, the different organs which are affected by such principles, when present in the food, ceasing to perform their functions normally when such principles are wanting, or are deficient in the food. Until chemistry makes the ne.

MEDICINE.

cessary discovery in the laboratory, so as to be able to solve satisfactorily the chemical question, we must rest contented with the medical solution of the olden time, as acquired by experience, viz., that those principles that produce cathartic action are cathartic, and are required for some wise purpose in the processes of digestion, assimilation, preservation, and defecation in small quantity in the daily food of every animal-that tonic principles are required to keep up the tissues in a normal state of tonicity, so as to enable them to perform their functions. Thus the muscles of the stomach and intestinal canal and the muscles of the heart require tonic principle to counteract the relaxing principles of the respiratory elements of food, so as to preserve their contractile powers at the normal standard; that the kidneys require diuretic properties, the skin,diaphoretic, the fluids antiseptic and refrigerant, to prevent abnormal change; and so on throughout the whole list of medicinal properties and their innumerable combinations. Because man is not so well informed in organic chemistry as his Maker, is no valid reason for him be coming a sceptic to the chemical solution of what we see daily solved at the bar of experience, in the natural providence of things, and which can be thus solved at the bar of experience as often as we please, in accordance with the established deductions of medical science, especially since the progress now being made in chemical analysis is annually approaching nearer and nearer to a satisfactory solution of the chemical question itself at issue.

In the common language of practical farmers, the medicinal princples of the grasses and other plants eaten by cattle are their odorous and sapid properties. All attempts hitherto made to classify them under such heads as bitter, saccharine, saline, astringent, acid, aromatic, fœtid, acrid, alliacious, musky, &c., &c., have failed. When several of them are combined or present together in one plant, as they generally are, such as saccharine, saline, bitter-acid, and aromatic, it is not very easily distinguishing the one from the other, or saying which may predominate, or how many may be present in one plant. But, with the peculiar smell and taste of each plant, farmers are familiar; and also with the fact that the quantity and quality of these odorous and sapid properties are very different under different seasons, and under different modes of management and circumstances connected with the harvesting and using of them. They are also familiar with the fact that the value of these plants, as feeding materials, are dependant upon the fineness of the quality and the largeness of the quantity of the odorous and sapid properties, or natural condiment which such feeding materials contain when given to cattle. There are, in short, no facts in connection with farming, that are based upon a more solid foundation than the medicinal properties of the food of cattle, and their dietetic value. W. B.

THE BIDDENHAM AND CLIFTON HERDS.

"A fast thing of an hour without a check, through the Puckeridge and Lord Dacre's countries, and across Cardington Field, so dear to the leash, brought us to the Bedford station, on the brightest of mornings towards the close of May. Britannia with her shield and sheaf, and her adopted text, "He that tilleth the land shall have plenty of bread," had caught our eye as we swept over the Ouse, which runs through the heart of the town; but we had to make a long circuit past the Grammar Schools and The Swan, "which Oakley men know well," before we were among the clang of hammers, over which she presides, hard by the old site of Caldwell Priory. We were only following in the footsteps of Commissioners from seven different countries, who had descended on this temple of industrious peace two days before; and it is to them and their reports, that we must look for a fresh ringing of the changes on the story, which so many English feuilletonists have told already of the triumphs of the Britannia Works and its five hundred.

The rooms for models, the model agriculture and engineering library, and all the other natty arrangements of the interior (which is Mr. Frederick Howard's more especial domain), had but little charm for us by the side of the old picture of the Woburn sheep-shearing. Either the painter of nearly sixty years ago allowed his brush or his feelings, or both, to bear him into the sentimental latitudes, or the catholic spirit which could induce the great chiefs of the agricultural world once a year to call together a congress of men, who had won a name with stock and crops, is now fain to confess that it "cannot see my way," or has lost its ancient energy. Royalty is there in the person of the future "Sailor King," and so are three Dukes of Bedford: Francis the Fifth on his Irish mare, handling some Merino cloth; John the Sixth on his horse on the left; and the late Duke, with his brother Earl Russell, as little boys in knee-breeches, and probably thinking far more of ponies and rabbits than staple and touch. If Ellman and Overman have had an invitation to ponder over the Southdown; Buckley, Stone, and Stubbins have the Bakewell interest equally in keeping, and a word to say on the Welsh and Spanish specimens. On the Root table we read the name of "Gibbs." Arthur Young, that learned Thane of agricultural travel, is talking to Mr. Coke and Sir Joseph Banks, who has four other baronets-Davy, Sebright, Wynn, and Bunbury-all well known in their lines, from the Safety Lamp to the risky Turf, to keep him in countenance. Leave out Sam Whitbread, and a critic might safely deny, two hundred years hence, that it was a Bedfordshire picture of the period at all. The Suffolk Punch has a place; but the Shorthorn, then unblest by a Comet prestige, had, not shed its primitive title of "Teeswater." The "Oakley Hereford bull under the tree" would seem, from his name, to be the reigning favourite; but the key is dark as to breed, when it treats of the responsibilities of Wetcar the herdsman, and merely introduces him to posterity as the man "who fed all the beautiful oxen sent from Creslow. '

The boy Duke of this picture and Mr. Buckley alone re-appear in the companion print of the Royal Agricultural Society's Meeting at Bristol in '42; and there,

with Ransome, Garrett, Crosskill, and Hornsby to back them, the Implements take up their legitimate ground in the great social system of agriculture. Gardner's turnip cutter and Garrett's horse hoe are still the foremost in the modest array from A to P, which is there delineated; and if we give ourselves "leave to report progress," we have only to glance from the front door before we make our sally, over a couple of acres covered with iron ploughs, waiting till autumn begins to summon them a-field.

Upwards of six thousand of them leave the Works annually, and, although the great run is upon the H & HH, a sixth of last year's orders were for the Chelmsford PP and 124 for the Bristol J A, which has a peculiar aptitude for hard work and clay land. A few red Hottentot ploughs with their strong wood frames and shares-which will turn two furrows at a time of Peat that light Cape soil-lend colour to the mass. thirty-six inches under the alluvial soil of the fens will not be proof against the gentle violence of those sturdy clunch ploughs, which contrast quaintly with their nimble iron compatriots in the blue interest; and stacks of harrows with reversible tines, cultivators, horse and steam, and horse rakes for Russia and Australia, take up the same tale of yellow, green, and fallow-brown fields, all over the world. Russia, with no tariff to fetter her, is far away the best all round customer. Fifteen per cent. stares each plough in the face as it enters a French port, and the Treaty did not touch it. Subject to a moderate duty (which is reduced one half on application to the Governments), steam engines and thrashing machines especially find their way in large numbers to Austria, and Hungary, which is struggling hard to be the garden of Europe.

A few steps bring us from the heart of the finished to the noisy regions of the raw material. The Ouse, so big with mischief of late, glides stealthily by the edge of the works, and bears its hundred tons of coal weekly from Lynn; and a troop of Priory rooks in the elms are cawing their hopeless protest against the hammers, and the invasion of their ancient solitudes. Tier after tier is built up, by the water's edge, of pig-iron, from Scotland and Barrow; and nearly 100 tons of it is weekly served out, "all hot," by the furnace-men to the moulders, along the little tramways. Red Mansfield sand, yellow local, with more clay in it, and cream-coloured Woolwich, make up, with coal-dust and a coating of charcoal, the wherewithal of the moulder's art; and, although we cared more to see the moulds in which future Dukes of Thorndale were to be cast and quickened, we had a very pleasant hour's ramble. Our notes seem of rather a discursive character. Three men, they observe, were bending, flattening, and hardening horserake teeth at one movement; and we seem to have learnt, in reply to leading questions, that they may be safely backed to turn out six dozen in the hour, and that twenty-eight go to a rake. Five or six men, chosen for their stalwart size, were holding plough-breasts of forty pounds to the grindstone as deftly as if they were razors; the clock was telling with its unresting pointer of four yards of wire rope woven in 25 seconds; jets of water were giving the chill shares their earliest and most enduring notion of temper; and welding cast and wrought iron together for haymaker-barrels, was the great order of the day. We found the original hay

maker, which got the first prize at Leeds, in the Priory meadow; and in a few minutes the horse was put to, and the swathes of Italian grass, which had been cut down specially to try the machine in a two-horse shape, were flying aloft once more. The great improvements in it are the zigzag arrangement of the fork barrels, which prevents the hay from clogging, and enables the forks to get hold of smaller pieces, and the eccentric movement by which the backward or forward movements are adjusted. The former has the effect of loosening the swathe better, and laying it at least three inches higher; while the roller behind the driver prevents lodgment. The presence of the photographer's art was also indicated in the close by the white canvas frame under the sycamore; and heaps of elm and poplar, some of them sprouting before their packing-case turn arrives, ash for horse-rake and haymaker shafts, and oak for steam-plough windlasses, made up the motley array of wood. If the six stone coffins which lie there as the sole above-ground relics of the Priory could speak for their "handfuls of white dust," they would take comfort from the thought that wood, their supplanter, has had at least, in its implement estate, to bow the knee to (iron) stone once more.

The first-prize haymaking machine was James Howard's memento of Leeds; but his brother Charles had an equally creditable one in the first prize for bull calves at his very first essay as a Shorthorn exhibitor: and we were not long in reaching the home from which Lord Sydney Spencer, and his brother Lord Stanley ditto, went forth to do battle last July. The road lay past St. Peter's Green, the pride of Bedford, and the very ideal of rus in urbe, and down the street of Dame Alice Harpur, whose pious memory, as well as her knight's, poor widows and decayed tradesmen will bless for ever and aye. Mr. James Howard's trial farm is on the Clapham Hill, to our right; and pretty well its bosom is racked in season by the steam-cultivators. His brother also farms ninety acres at "The Priory," close by Bedford, but we saw nothing in our line there, save some of his favourite cross-bred fowls (of which the hens are especially beautiful), and which we can only describe, in true breeders' fashion, as by a golden pencil, dam by a Cochin, grandam by a game cock. Two miles more brought us to Mr. Howard's residence at Biddenham, which lies a short distance off the high road between Bedford and Olney. The house is quite in the old grange style. Vine, apricot, and greengage, and the white-stalked fig, with geraniums, cluster over its Elizabethan gables; and the thick ivy not only clings, but bestows the flower of its days on the porch. Still we were matter-of-fact enough to lean to the mulberry tree, because the first Biddenham Shorthorn bargain (for a Knightley Cardinal) was made under its shade; and we saw no prospect like that from the garden-wall, when the heifers in the opposite meadow fairly focussed themselves between two trees, whose boughs met overhead, and composed a rustic frame. Mr. Howard occupies forty acres of Lord Dynevor's at Bromham Park, but the bulk of his farm is the 310 acres at Biddenham, which he has held under the same gentleman since 1847. It is all turnip soil, and rather a sharp gravel, by the side of the Ouse, which runs round it-horse-shoe fashion. The cultivation is entirely upon the fourcourse system; and it is upon his flock of 200 Oxford Down ewes, whose produce are kept liberally, that Mr. Howard has long made his stand, and earned his " cross of honour" at Smithfield.

He began originally with half Leicester and Sussex Downs, from Mr. Chandler of Snelson, but in 1851 he fell in love with Mr. Gillett's first prize OxfordshireDown shearling, at Windsor, and that decided him to get rid of half-breds, and boldly try his hand as a ram

|

breeder. His first step was to hire the shearling in question, and then he gradually worked up his flock by interchanges of Druce and Gillett blood, till within the last two years, when he has begun to use his own rams entirely. At the Warwick Royal, where he hired Mr. Druce's first prize shearling, his pen of ewes was highly commended in a class, which was commended en masse; and at Canterbury the next year, he had an H C and C for rams. Battersea will find Oxfordshire Downs with

a distinct class of their own, instead of competing with Hampshire Downs. The Fates at Baker-street were more kind, and already he has entered a first, two seconds, and a third to his own and the shepherd's credit for wethers of 22 months. James Makeham (who dwells on a knoll in one of the prettiest sheep garths we know) has always had a good name for twins, and he has kept it at three successive Bedfordshire Shows, by winning the prize, with on one occasion 276 lambs from 200 ewes. His pen of 10 ewes at the same meeting in 186061 had the cup card tied over them, to say nothing of divers prizes with wethers and theaves. Some of the latter with a few rams were lately exported to Sweden and Hanover (to which country another lot is now bound); and upwards of thirty shearling rams are annually sold into his own and the neighbouring counties. To unite the quality of the Southdown with a larger frame and heavier fleece has been Mr. Howard's aim, and he has worked right surely and well towards the front rank.

The Biddenham Herd proper, only began in 1858, previous to which time Mr. Howard had merely bought beasts to sell out. Lady Spencer 2nd was the first purchase, and now the females include four Lady Spencers, five Charmers, three Gracefuls, seven Gwynnes, and three Pearls, and the bulls bring the numbers up to twoand-thirty. The young stock were in Goody's close on the opposite side of the road, and doing credit to its rich natural grass. Among them, Sybilla from Sylph had not given her owner reason to regret that by a mistake of orders she is by British Baronet, and not by Mayduke; but the deep milking of Grace Howard, who lost her calf at two years old, had told not a little against her looks. She was bought in her dam Graceful at Mr. Harvey Combe's sale, and has the good middle and nice open head of the Marmadukes, but her younger sister Grace Darling by Harry of Glos'ter has more gayness and elegance. Three crosses of Booth, Hamlet, Hopewell, and Sir Samuel, unite in the long and low May Maid from Maydew. Pero from Pearl pleased us not a little with her nice forehand of the Booth type, and if her top line were equal to her other points, she would be a very attractive heifer; while the nice coat of Sunnetta by Mayduke from Sunflower spoke more for her than her actual looks. Mayduke had another representative in Faustina Gwynne from Flora Gwynne, a long and useful seventeen months heifer, with the nice crops and fore-quarter of her tribe, but a trifle dipped in her loins.

Her dam Flora Gwynne, a purchase at the Blencowe sale, was one of the main objects of the yard as we passed through it to the Old Manor or the Dove Cote pasture; but as she was all but down calving the first of the Thorndale line at Biddenham, we did not ask her to rise. Florence Gwynne, another of her daughters by Duke of Cambridge, looked old for her years, although she has had but one calf, and that happy consummation was only arrived at by the removal of the clytoris. Lady Selina Spencer, a combination of the blood of Second Duke of Cambridge and Lady Spencer 2nd by Usurer, and so back to No. 55 at Chilton, found luck not in leisure, but in haste. Her dam was bought at Aynhoe for something above 100 guineas, and Lady Selina was the first "Shorthorn of not less than four

pure crosses" that Mr. Howard ever had. At three years and a month, she was the dam of three, and one of them the Leeds prize calf; so that first purchase, first calf, and first Royal prize all followed in close and regular order. She is a nice, hardy, short-legged cow, with a capital bag; and her half-brother by Mayduke took the head yearling bull prize for Mr. Robinson at the Bedfordshire meeting. The lean neat-cut head and sweet eye bespoke Sylph's descent from Sweetheart 4th of that Charmer sort, but Sunflower from Sweetheart 3rd was hardly fit to "receive," as she had slipped twin bull calves nearly three months before to the Duke of Leinster, and had never got over it. Day's Eye of the Jobson sort looked a rare milker, but she has seen her best days, and Orphan Gwynne and Fair Fanny Gwynne, a great fine white heifer, represented that hardy-looking family. The former by Duke of Glos'ter (11382) is below her kinswoman in looks, and rather mean in her colour, and claims descent from Daphne Gwynne bought at Mr. Tanqueray's sale, and soon through five Gwynnes.

Graceful, a purchase at Mr. Harvey Combe's sale, and a daughter of Pearl's, were put up to feed; and a rare half-sister of the latter, and a clever and blood-like red calf, Syriac, from Sylph, spoke favourably for the Duke of Leinster's stay, although we thought that some of his calves, both here and at Clifton, had a tendency to be on leg. We found its fruits again in two older calves, which were led out, one of them a neat red-andwhite, Lady Semele Spencer, from Lady Selina Spencer (the dam of the bull calves), and Fortuna Gwynne from Frances Gwynne, a very nicely-formed roan, with all the fine crop characteristics of the tribe. Both of them, along with Lady Salome Spencer, were being prepared for Battersea, but not being stuffed against time. Lady Salome, by Harry of Glo'ster, was the last calf of Lady Spencer 2nd (who died of ossification of the aorta), and quite the plum of the herd. This Leeds C is not exactly fashionable in her style, but wealthy and good; her rare loin catches your eye at once, and her fine deep breast gives her the orthodox prize-waddle as she comes towards

you.

The Duke of Cumberland appeared next on the green, and reminded us rather of his kinsman Druid, although his horn is less exalted, Harry of Gloster and Day's Eye had produced a lengthy useful bull in Daylight, with nice quarters and twist, and five Sonsies in his pedigree. Mr. Howard had sold his brother to a Swedish agriculturist; and shortly before, Sir W. Capel de Brooke had taken a fancy to Lord Sydney Spencer's white twin brother Lord Stanley. The pair were by Hayman (a son of Booth's Highthorn and Claret's grandam), and were the first, along with Lady Salome Spencer, that Mr. Howard ever sent to the Royal, where Lord Sydney had to meet a field of thirtyone. As a yearling Lord Sydney is hardly a show bull, and wants quite another year to come to his frame. He has a nice masculine head, well-covered shoulder points, and a mellow touch, but his middle is rather too big in his present hobbledehoy state, and he is not quite so good behind the shoulders as we should like to see him. The Second Duke of Thorndale loomed in sight for the finale, and we were glad to accept him, even "without his thatch." He was fairly maw bound, and burnt up with inward fever, when he arrived last June, with three Duchesses, two Oxford bulls, and an Oxford heifer, per City of Baltimore, and was received by Mr. Strafford and a regular deputation of Bates's men, at Liverpool. The heavy course of physic reduced him nearly 30 stone, and Messrs. Howard and Robinson, who bought him between them, often thought that their 400 gs, was doomed, without having a calf to show for it. However, he got round with great care and patience, and he

now keeps moving, at intervals, between his two country residences, the Shed and the Orchard, Biddenham and Clifton, in his one-horse van. He is a bull of great length, about eight feet (from between his horns to the root of his tail), three-eighths of which is taken up with a peculiarly slashing forehand, with nicely covered shoulder points, and the only fault of the head is a peculiar fleshiness about the eye.

We stopped en route to Clifton at Bromham Park, of which Mr. Howard has the occupancy, to see Pearl 4th, a white eleven-year-old daughter of old Benedict. The substantial Frances Gwynne bore her company, and we thought her as much, if not most, like the Pearl tribe of the two; but an attack of the mouth-and-foot disease had affected her bag, and she will milk no more. After this divergence, which tempted us on for a distant peep at Oakley, and all its old paddock recollections of Taurus, Oakley, Minotaur, Envoy, and last, though not least, of Asteroid, we struck into the road to Clifton again. It lies principally by the bank of the Ouse, and twice over, we found ourselves, riding for nearly a mile on each side of Turvey, beneath a complete canopy of trees. A wondrous change has come over Turvey since Leigh Richmond, the little lame pastor," lived and laboured there, and was not accounted least in that glorious throng in which Venn, Milner, Hannah More, and Wilberforce were all living names. The benefit clubs and schools, which he first planted, seemed to bear eloquent witness to his memory; and, to judge from the whole look of the place, comfort and education reigned paramount. Peace and war were both vividly represented as we passed through it. At one end of it a large clerical meeting had just broken up, and groups of black-coats were strolling up and down the grounds of the Abbey; and on the opposite outskirts of the village a score of mounted Volunteer Rifles, in their scarlet jackets, were going through the sword exercise in a meadow, and making savage menaces at their boots and the buttercups.

Mr. Robinson's residence lies about three miles farther away, on the summit of a hill just above the Vale of Olney. The estate, which was left him by his father, consists of 930 acres, of which he has six hundred in hand, and a third of it under plough. It is on limestone rock and loam, and stone brash. By the aid of expensive manure, two white crops often follow in succession, and always three before it is in fallow again. The dry layer of grass enables the cattle to be out all winter without treading the land, and the great pasture of sixty acres which slopes down to the Ouse regularly carries its one Hereford and half a sheep per acre. The "paleface" finds a second home in the Vale of Aylesbury and the Ouse, and thousands are bought in for that purpose at the Northampton fairs. The vale in which Olney stands is one succession of meadows, separated by Holland dykes; and as the pasture is dried up towards autumn on the neighbouring hills, Herefords, Welsh runts, Devons, half-bred sheep, and Dorset tups are driven down to the holdings, just as elsewhere they are wont to adjourn to the marshes. Olney, which is now one long street, without any very distinct trade, was originally formed by those migratory habits of cattle-drivers, and then Cowper and his arbour (for which pilgrims have shown their devotion by the most insane scribbling and ruthless knife-knotching) conferred immortality and picnic profits. Its tall church spire, and mill with the two-headed stream, lie in the very centre of the Vale, more famed for beef and butter, than for those tremendous runs which have made Belvoir and Aylesbury so renowned. All round it, however, the panorama is bounded by the rich chain of Oakley and Grafton Hunt woodlands. From old Cross Albans Wood the eye roams round by the Emberton hill-side, past Hanslope and Stoke park, to Easton Wood; and

above Weston Underwood, Yardley Chace joins on to Salcey Forest, where Will Wells and George Beers have given the whaw-hoop over many a well-earned fox. Mr. Robinson is by no means exclusive in his Shorthorn tastes. Besides his five dozen Herefords, he buys at least 40 Devons or Welsh runts, as three-year-olds, and passes them on, after seven months' residence, viâ Wolverton, to London. In sheep his fancy runs with a cross of Down and Leicester, which he crosses with an Oxford Down, or sometimes a West Dorset tup, and sells out the fat lambs at four or five months. The ewes, about 200 in number, are bought fresh nearly every year, and their produce, when crossed with an Oxford Down, generally cut from nine to ten pounds of wool. The Shorthorn herd numbers about seventy head, of which thirty are breeding cows and heifers. The whole lot are priced, and Australia and the Emperor of the French have been leading customers so far. Mr. Robinson is not one of the "force meat" division; and the "cooking" extends very little beyond boiled crushed corn and linseed, poured hot on to chaff, and a little cake in addition. The bull-calves always have the pail, but if the heifer calves are dropped in March or April they suck their dams. So far he has never got up anything for Smithfield, but has been a steady supporter of the Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire Shows. He never appeared at The Royal till it met at Warwick, where he brought the yearling Hayman and a bull-calf. His Canterbury pilgrimage had a happier result, as " Claret from Clifton bins" (an image the appropriateness of which will be recognised by any one who remembers the great feeding shed) was third to the Gunter twins ; and Norman Duke won a H. C. in the bull-calf class, and went to Australia forthwith.

It is now about a third of a century since Mr. Robinson, senior, purchased his first shorthorn bull Attratum by Attraction, from Old Philip Skipworth, to use upon dairy stock; and the cross came out so well, that in '38 he sent his son with £300 (and Mr. Strafford as pilot) to Mr. Chrisp's of Doddington's sale, and they got Red Duchess (120 gs.-dam of Mr. Stratton's Red Duke) and four others for the money. In the autumn of the same year, Mr. Robinson, senior, went to Castle Howard, and gave 300gs. for Malibran and 100gs. for Jemima, a heifer out of Foggathorpe, which cow was bought by Mr. Bates at the same sale; and followed up his introduction to "the Yarm philosopher" by hiring Shorttail, a pure Duchess bull, from him for 100 gs. In 1841 he bought the Clifton estate; and his residence at Bletsoe terminated with a sale of seventy lots, at an average of about £44. Shorttail got very few calves, and Nonsuch was bought from Mr. Bates in his stead; but still Mr. Robinson reserved the three heifers by him, and the trio, with Malibran, Jemima, and Taglioni, arrived at Clifton. Of these, Taglioni never bred; Malibran had twelve calves, and Colonel Pennant bought her twelfth calf Mayflower; a bull, Grimaldi, out of her was sold for 100 gs. to Mr. Watson, of Walkeringham, and the Emperor of the French had the last of the tribe. Half of the present herd are descendants of Jemima by Benjamin from Foggathorpe; and the Queens date back to Princess, one of the Shorttail heifers. Not a few are of the tribe of Jeanetta, a Homer cow, bought at one of Mr. Wetherell's sales in calf to Bellville; and she, Malibran, Jemima, and seven heifers, were the present Mr. Robinson's start in 1848, when his father valued the stock over to him.

The beginning seemed fair enough; but the lung disease fell upon them the very next spring, and a rising herd was speedily knocked down to four. As a first step, Mr. Robinson went to Mr. Beaseley's for three of the J sort, Josephine, Jantza, and Jumper. The next spring found him by the side of the Kirklevington sale,

ring; and after bidding unsuccessfully for Second Duke of Oxford, he got the last nod at 65 gs. for Third Duke of Oxford, own brother to Oxford Sixth. Unfortunately he had contracted an Indian-juggler habit of swallowing, not knives, but any cold iron which fell in his way, and his windpipe became so ulcerated that he died of starvation. On a post-mortem, his paunch was found to be full of nails with great heads, and as bright as burnished silver. He only left three heifers behind him, Queen Bess, Lady Margaret, and Prizeflower. A visit to the Fawsley sale ended in the purchase of Cardinal (11246) by Grey Friar, from Fillet, which was then a bull calf, for 91 gs. Junia and Johanna joined the ranks from Aynhoe; but the latter lost all her calves, and Junia has had three heifers. Naphtha had been bought at Aynhoe some years before, and goes back direct to No. 13 at the Chilton sale. She was the dam of several good heifers, and grandam of the heifer calf which was sold for 200 gs. at Leeds. Four Gwynnes were added from Mr. Troutbeck's of Blencowe, but only Miss Maggy and Sylvia were got to breed; and Sweetheart 2nd from Mr. Adkins, and eight heifers from the Hon. Noel Hill's, pretty well complete the female purchase catalogue.

Highthorn (13028) from Warlaby took Cardinal's place in 1856, but his hiring was not a lucrative one. British Prince followed, and prospered better, and, though a white bull himself, left a far larger number of roans than the roan Highthorn. Booth and Bates were combined in May Duke by Grand Duke from Vivacity by Fitzleonard, and the only calf she ever had. At the end of two seasons he was let to Earl Spencer, and one of Mr. Robinson's own breeding, Hayman by Highthorn from an Earl of Dublin cow, took his place. He was another instance of a white getting roans whatever he was put on; but on Mr. Robinson deciding to have another trial with a pure Booth, he was sold to Mr. Burton near Biggleswade, and Duke of Leinster by Harbinger from Sylph by Hopewell was hired from Mr. Barnes of Ireland, and passed on, when his season was over, to Mr. Waldo's of Kent, to make room for Bates once more in the Second Duke of Thorndale.

Mayduke was the present tenant in possession of the bull-paddock, which has certainly no "marrow" in England, that we have seen or heard of. It is about two acres in extent, walled all round, and the grandson of Vivandière was comfortably enjoying himself under a wide-spreading walnut tree, as Duke of Thorndale, Highthorn, and British Prince had done before him. During his first two years' stay, he escaped from his solitude, and created as great a panic in the little village by his antics, as when the historical tigress attacked the mail. As he eyed us from the opposite side of the ditch, we felt it best to make no farther approaches, and contented ourselves with admiring his fine forehead and deep breast. Messrs. Carr, Bolden, and the Hon. Noel Hill all used him, and the latter parted with him for 100gs., after he had been highly commended as an aged bull at Chester. Leaving his domain, we crossed the Water Hills, and the site of the old Clifton manor-house. Squire Small, "one of the sprucest men that ever graced the Pytchley hunting field," and one of the first to raise the price of hunters, has long since been laid to his rest in the adjoining church, and nothing but the indentation of the cellars, which generally contrive to leave their mark last, remains to tell of so many nights of hunting revelry. The small fox-cover on the bank has distressed Mr. Robinson (who is a constant Oakley man), by not holding a litter this season; but we soon forgot that trouble when we found ourselves wending our way across a field of early mangels, towards the Little Pasture,