my motives have been misconceived. As to accepting challenges, I have always declined to do so, except when any great object was to be attained as a public advantage. After exhibiting successfully for years together, for twenty-six years I never exhibited any cattle, and the best at that time (above thirty years ago), are now nearly extinct, and all I said of them has proved true, and such will be the case again of the stock that has sprung up unknown forty years ago. In so saying, I neither intend offending you or any one, but barely expressing my opinion founded on an experience of above sixty years.

"I trust I have said enough to convince you that I have no ill-will to yon in anything I have said.

"Perhaps this may induce me in future both to decline showing as well as speaking of stock, as my object has been, by so doing, to benefit others and not myself. I remain, &c.,

"KIRKLEVINGTON, NEAR YARM, October 14, 1844."

To the Editor of the Farmers' Journal:

"THOMAS BATES.

Sir-Since I wrote to you the above letter, I have your communication, saying "That it would afford you great pleasure to insert any reply from me to the article headed Short-horns, which appeared in the Farmer's Journal of the 11th inst." Relying, therefore, on this assurance I shall endeavor to compress a few remarks in as short a compass as time will admit, to send you by this day's post.

In the first place I must state why I made any remarks at all on the bull "Cramer." Mr. Banks Stanhope called upon me with Mr. Dudding, a neighbor of his, whom I had often had the pleasure of seeing here, and Mr. Banks Stanhope wishing to purchase two cows of me, each having a cross of the bull Norfolk (2377), in Herd Book 3d volume; and as I had fed off Norfolk's dam, and had found her the worst grazer I had fed for above forty years, I told him I sold them because I objected to that blood being in them, and asked a less price than I otherwise would have done had they been free of that blood. A pretty strong proof that I objected to that blood, and did not hesitate to say so, to my own disadvantage-but these two cows had since a cross with my "Duchess blood," which had greatly restored their former high merit-and wishing not to see that valuable blood again deteriorated, I asked Mr. Banks Stanhope what bull he meant. to put to them, and not thinking well of "Cramer's" blood neither in sire or dam's side, I said, I had much rather he sent the cows, if he bought them, to any one of my own bulls, leaving him the choice of such bulls, and that he should have them served gratuitously rather than that they should be put to "Cramer," as he said "Cramer" was the bull he used; in so saying I had no intention, nor was I the least aware that offence would be taken at my offer-which was done on my part both in kindness to Mr. B. S., and to improve further the stock he was about buying; and as a proof that I am improving even upon the Duke of Northumberland's daughters, I have sold a heifer calf out of his daughter, at more money than I asked for the dam (this calf in her belly at the time) this time twelvemonth. And as I thought this cow better than the two he wished to pur[AG. TRANS.]

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chase, I offered her at the same price I asked last year in calf, and again in calf, to the same bull as last year, but Mr. B. S. said he did not like the cow and no more was said about her.

Now, in the autumn of 1843, Mr. Parkinson, Sen., saw one of his prize heifers shown at York in a sixteen acre field, as I durst not put any other cattle in, as this heifer had, previously to coming here, had the prevailing epidemic. I had granted the gentleman the privilege of sending her to one of my bulls, he having bought a bull calf of me some months previous to asking to have this heifer bulled; she had perfectly recovered of the epidemic before she came here, and looked well about her, but made no growth. Mr. Parkinson, Sen., (for I presume the Mr. Parkinson who wrote to me was the son of the purchaser of Sir Thomas Fairfax), remarked she had made no growth though she had so large and so good a pasture (having some other years carried sixteen head of my own breed of cattle, instead of only one, and the summer of 1843 was a good grass year). This showed candor on the part of Mr. Parkinson, Sen., pointing out the defect of the heifer, "want of growth," though of his own breeding and a prize animal.

When I wrote my letter to Mr. P., Jr., (the copy thereof sent for your insertion by a former post) I did hope he might have possessed somewhat of his father's candor, and was not the least aware he meant to bring the subject before the public eye, as he has done, not in his own name, but sheltered under the word "Correspondent." Now before I write more, I beg pointedly to say, I will not again reply to any feigned signature. If my remarks should induce Mr. P., Jr., to reply hereto, let him have the manliness to put his name to it, and he shall have a rejoinder as long as he pleases to bring the subject before the public, and you, as Editor, choose to give your columns gratuitously to the subject, and he may call the whole world to aid him in his reply. It is with great reluctance that I make this declaration, from a dislike to controversy, but "Correspondent," for such is the signature I have to reply to, says, "I have declined the offers of Mr. Banks Stanhope and Mr. Parkinson, Jr." I did so because I saw no good likely to arise therefrom. If I had accepted this challenge then every young, ignorant, conceited, purse-proud coxcomb, who began short-horn breeding without knowing in what a good Short-horn consisted, would probably have sent me such like challenge, and surely the public cannot expect that I should accept such challenges.

If the parties under the signature of "Correspondent" wish to have the demerits of the blood of "Cramer," I can furnish them with plenty to their hearts content. In the room where this is written a breeder from the same blood I object to in this animal, declared to me he had lost more than ten thousand pounds by breeding Short-horns, and he began with one of the best tribes of Short-horns then in existence, before Mr. Robert Colling went to Brampton, and he was some years at Brampton before he and his brother Charles began to breed Short-horns; and the Short-horns at Brampton, before Mr. R. Colling's day, were better than any he ever bred.

Now, this instance is not a solitary one, for two near neighbors of mine, when I lived at Halton Castle, in Northumberland, had the hardiest and best constitutioned stock of Short-horns, and they were two very large herds, and very prolific up to 1811, and the one lost all his calves but two,

and from the same blood as "Cramer," and it was for two years in succession. The other breeder's Short-horns all lived, but the former always said he was the greatest gainer of the two, for the latter person's stock became the most delicate, disthriving cattle that I ever saw, and continued so for above ten years, till they at last, many of them, died out, or would have done so, had they not been slaughtered; and till this cross no stock could be more hardy than they were, and such has been the case wherever I have known that blood enter any well-descended herd of Short-horns. With inferior, coarse, ill-bred cattle, such may go on; and many breeders, having this same blood, have resorted to coarse, ill-bred Short-horned cattle to try to restore their delicate constitutions; and this has filled the country with the very worst breed of cattle, called improved Short-horns, which now so generally prevails, and has brought, justly, a discredit upon Shorthorns for it is such as these that have ruined many breeders, and destroyed many a valuable herd; and I might fill all the columns of your paper by reciting instances-such as the blood of "Cramer," on his dam's side.

I shall now state my objections to the sire of "Cramer," Sir Thomas Fairfax (5196.) When I saw at Mr. Whittaker's his bull, called Fairfax (1023), the predecessor of Sir Thomas Fairfax, I asked him if he had ever used that bull, and he clenched his fist, turned round to me, and, with great vehemence, said: “Do you think I would use a bull of a tribe that do not give a drop of milk? I have never used him, nor ever will to my herd of Shorthorns." Mr. Whittaker further told me that the great grand-dam of Fairfax bull was a cow between a blue and a black color; that she was bought for him by a jobber, who said that he had bought her at Stockton, and Mr. Whittaker desired me at different times to try and make out her pedigree, if she had one. I made many inquiries for many years, but no person ever heard of this blue-black cow. I was repeatedly told that she could not have been a Short-horn for they never knew a Short-horn of that color. Let Mr. Whittaker deny these facts, if he dare!

On Sir Thomas Fairfax being knocked down to Mr. Parkinson at a public sale, he said afterwards to me: "You don't approve of this blood, I know." And I replied: "Certainly not." And when Mr. Booth told me he had sold his half of Sir Thomas Fairfax to Mr. Parkinson, sen., I congratulated him thereon; he was not offended no more than Mr. Parkinson, sen., and they must thank "Correspondent" in your journal for this disclosure I now make.

When it was fruitless making any more inquiries respecting this blueblack cow, Mr. Whittaker put her down, supposed by Chapman's son of Punch, but without any evidence whatever. I give this as an instance of pedigree manufacturing almost as lucrative a trade as cotton manufacturing, and carried on at the present day with unblushing effrontery. It is not three years ago I went to see a stock advertised for sale, and they were all stated in the catalogue of the sale to be descended from one animal, whose represented sire I had used. And he was cut when he left me, and I saw him soon after being castrated. The parties whose stock was for sale were honest, upright characters, and told me the year their father bought the calf; I told them I had had the use of that bull, and had

seen him cut, after having had the use of him one year, but that was more than six years before this calf was calved. They assured me they were totally ignorant thereof, but that the person they had appointed as auctioneer assured them such was the case. On the day of sale, on the auctioneer arriving, he called me out to a private place and told me he was as certain of the fact as he was of his own existence of the bull they were descended from, and I have little doubt he would have taken his oath it was true, although he had proof given him by an eye-witness of the fact, that the bull was castrated above six years before the calf was calved; and then turning round, and pointing to the large company that was assembled, he said: "You see what a company I have brought together, and what a high sale I will make by my pedigrees of this sale." And the same auctioneer has continued the same pedigree to the same animals since he was certain it was a fabrication. I mention this, by the way, to guard persons against the prevailing practice of pedigree-making.

This blue-black cow, to which I referred above, was put to a bull bred from a Galloway polled, or hornless (without horns), cow, and had yet a worse cross than this polled Galloway cow; for the Short-horn blood in the cross was one of the hardest skinned and worst handlers I ever felt, and gave no milk worth noticing. Now, I would ask "Correspondent" seriously, whether he can, from such blood, expect to breed good Short-horns? The dam of Sir Thomas Fairfax was a bought cow, not bred by Mr. Whittaker, and where can he find any good animals of note in any of her predecessors?

By extra feeding the worst of animals may be forced forward; to gain the applause of incompetent judges, there wants no proof; but how they are fed, whether on Indian corn, which I have never used, or what other forcing keep, we are not told, but this I am certain of, that a cow, the Rev. Mr. Berry said produced 16 quarts per meal, or twice a day, of milk at Mr. Whittaker's, never produced more than four quarts, or one-fourth of the quantity, going in my cow pasture at Kirklevington, and that immediately after calving.

Having furnished Mr. Whittaker with very many valuable Short horns, some at less than a tenth of their value, and not a twentieth part of the cost of what he had paid for much worse animals, and in vain urged him to send them to my second Hubback that he might see the difference between his produce and that of Frederick, (267 in first volume of Herd Book, and 1016 in the second volume of Herd Book.) He wished me to buy Gambier (2046) of him, being by Bertram, and having the Daisy blood, and from Lady Matilda, the highest priced cow bought at Mr. Charge's sale in 1828; I did so, and paid him double the price that I paid for Belvidere (1706 in third volume of Herd Book), which I bought soon after; and having both bulls in use at the same time, and having eight steers by each bull, I kept the sixteen together invariably on the same keep till the 19th of October, 1835, after they were two years old, when, for want of keep, I sent the eight by Gambier to Yarm fair, and they were sold at £12 12s. each. On the evening of the same day I offered the eight by Belvidere to the same person, that they might be fed together, at £17 each, and he refused them.

At the Easter previously I had desired two graziers from the neighborhood of Morpeth, who were attending Darlington market on Easter Monday, to put a value on each of the eight steers, all going loose in the same straw yard, where they had gone all winter, eating wheat straw; they valued those by Gambier at £9 each, and those by Belvidere at £10 10s. each. On the 13th of May following the eight Gambier steers averaged by measurement 36 stones each, and those by Belvidere 42 stones each. The eight steers by Belvidere were turned out in the day to a grass pasture, very bare, and got straw at night, all the autumn of 1835 till January the 12th, 1836, twelve weeks, and they were then not so good as they were at Yarm fair, the 19th of October previous. They had afterwards a few turnips, (not two stones per day each,) and some damaged linseed, the cost of which did not exceed 14d. per week, besides straw and the cost of labor in boiling the linseed, and for a few weeks at first got a little bran mixed with it to induce them to eat it, and when so learnt, got only chopped straw mixed with the boiled linseed, which was bought by public auction.

These cattle were sold in Leeds market the first week in June, and averaged £34 each, averaging near 90 stones each, of 14 pounds per stone; those by Gambier, having the Galloway polled blood, &c., were sold 13 weeks afterwards at Wakefield, at £21 10s. each, making a difference in the price of the two lots of £12 103. per head each-£100 difference in the value of eight steers! no small consideration in the profits of grazing, besides three months longer keep.

I meant to have reversed the cows to each bull the following year and then seen the difference, but Gambier got no calves after the first year, (not unusual in this tribe of cattle.) I however put the cows, that were to Gambier, the following year to Belvidere, and kept the produce in steers in much the same manner as in the former year's breed, and sold them in the same market that the Gambier steers were sold at, (viz., Wakefield,) and above three months earlier, being sold in May, and got within five shillings per head of the price the Belvidere steers were sold for the previous year; the prices of beef per stone nearly the same both years, 1836 and 1837. This proves, by a sure test, the contrast between Frederick's blood and that of Belvidere.

Now this is a test of value far different to what " Correspondent" proposes. The opinion of men, unless they have judgment and honesty to act uprightly, is of no estimation whatever. As a proof in point, I need only refer Mr. Parkinson, Jr., himself to his decision and that of his coadjutors, Mr. Torr, of Lincolnshire, and Mr. Anthony Maynard, at Richmond, last summer, at the Yorkshire Agricultural Society's Exhibition, (and these three took every pains in examining the different animals,) and the decisions of the judges at the Durham Agricultural Society's meeting at Stockton, within two months of the former, where the same bulls were again exhibited as at Richmond, and where one, unnoticed at Richmond, was placed before the two that got the first and second premiums at Richmond. After such frequent bare-faced, unprincipled conduct in men, to say nothing of the total want of judgment altogether, it behooves the conductors of agricultural societies to take some other mode of ascertaining merit than the opinions of men incompetent to such a task, and appointed by men who