went off with spirit.  I chanced to sit next to the veterinary surgeon who attended my own stock as well as the herd on offer, and it was amusing to hear his confidential communications as the animals were sold at huge prices.  He knew their faults and weaknesses professionally, and it was no breach of confidence, when a cow had passed through the ring and extracted a big figure from an American buyer, to whisper them in my ear.  I noticed that the Americans, no doubt with commissions to buy a particular strain of pedigree, appeared to pay more attention to the catalogue than to the cattle themselves, and I saw some sold at fancy prices, which I should really have been sorry to see in my own non-pedigree herd.  The sale was a great success, from the vendor’s point of view at any rate, and I think the average exceeded seventy guineas all round, including calves only a few months old.

Some years later I visited Shipston-on-Stour with two friends to attend a shorthorn sale in that neighbourhood.  Mr. Thornton, the well-known pedigree salesman, was the auctioneer.  He waited about for a long time after the hour fixed for the sale, until it became evident that something had gone wrong.  It appeared that the sheriff’s representative had served a writ on the vendor restraining the sale, and although it was stated that Thornton had offered a personal guarantee that the proceeds should be handed over to the sheriff, the representative could not exceed his instructions, and the sale was abandoned.  A large company, including many foreign buyers, had assembled; it was difficult to get these together at a postponement, and when the sale was proceeded with some weeks later, I fear the result could scarcely have proved so satisfactory.

The Vale of Evesham is particularly suitable for pedigree shorthorn breeding, as the soil and climate are very favourable for their production according to exhibition type.  It is otherwise with the Jersey, for they quickly adapt themselves to the difference in their environment as compared with the conditions in their native Channel Island.  When I exchanged my shorthorns for Jerseys, owing to the foreign competition in the production of beef, which at sevenpence a pound compared unfavourably with butter at fifteenpence, I imported my cows direct from the Island, and afterwards bred from their descendants, selling the bull calves, and occasionally buying a young bull from Jersey.  The blood was therefore kept absolutely pure, and, as I was a member of the English Jersey Society, all my stock were entered in the Herd Book.

As time went on my cattle presented a noticeable change from the original type; they were larger, developing much more hair and bone, and though they gained in strength of constitution, and were handsome and profitable, they gradually lost the dainty deer-like appearance of the imported stock; and though quite as valuable for the purposes of the dairy, they would have been regarded in the show ring by connoisseurs as having a tendency to coarseness.  I was, at first, successful at the shows, but as the character of my cattle altered I recognized that they would stand no chance against Jerseys bred on lighter land, and in a climate more nearly approximating to that of their native country.