guineas, and that he would take nothing less. The answer, naturally enough, was that Waistell would not pay five guineas for a service by a bull, his half-share in which he had just sold for four.

Having now a bull to his mind, although he did not give him a name—the famous name of Hubback-till after he had sold him, Charles Colling began casting about for good cows. On June 14, 1784, he bought in Darlington market what he considered the best cow he bad ever seen, from Thomas Appleby of Stanwick, for 131. Her handling was very superior; she was a massive, short-legged animal, of a beautiful yellow-red roan; her breast was near the ground, and her back wide. Appleby was a tenant of the Duke of Northumberland, and at Ketton the cow received the name of Duchess. About this same time Colling bought a cow he called Daisy at Brafferton, a village a mile or so to the north of Ketton. She was "an animal very neat in shape and very inclinable to make fat." He had no doubt she had a cross of his early acquaintance, Masterman's Bull (422, 670). From Alexander Hall, of Haughton-le-Skerne, he purchased a heifer, descended, like his brother Robert's pair, from the celebrated Tripes. This heifer, known as Haughton, was by Hubback, and her excellence confirmed the good opinion Colling had formed of him as a sire.

In September 1784 old Charles Colling of Skerningham won at Darlington the "reward" of three guineas offered by the newly established Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture in the County of Durham, for the "best breeding cow in milk, to be kept two years afterwards in the county "-probably with the ancestress of Punch (531). Robert Colling received a similar sum for the best tup, with "one now engaged for the autumn season by Mr. George Coates, of Haughton, butcher." The two brothers were elected members of the Durham Society in December.

The father of "the Collings" died at the age of 64, and was buried in Haughton churchyard on March 18, 1785. That same month his son Charles won the five-guineas prize for the best bull at Durham with his eight-guineas purchase. It must be remembered that the bull classes at Durham were open to all breeds, and the Shorthorns had to contend against all comers.

Far from approving as yet of in-and-in breeding, Charles Colling seems to have sent the neat, fine heifer Haughton by Hubback, which he had bought of Alexander Hall, to Richard Barker's bull at Oxenfield, in order to avoid a second cross by Hubback. Barker's bull was a great, good-shaped, dark redroan, but is said to have been coarse and wiry-haired, with a

"When you reach that fine country on both sides the river Tees you are then in the centre of the short-horned breed of cattle."--GEORGE CULLEY, 1786,

large head, dark horns, and a black nose. The produce of Haughton's visit to Oxenfield was the white calf with a few red spots, afterwards known as Foljambe (263).

The following year Gabriel Thornton, a brother of "Mr. Robert Thornton, Robert Colling's man," entered Charles Colling's service as bailiff. He had lived for eight years with John Maynard of Eryholme. He mentioned the fine cattle at Eryholme to his new master, and on September 30, 1786, Colling and his wife rode over to see Maynard's herd. A sevenyear-old cow that Maynard's daughter is said to have been milking claimed their admiration, in spite of her horns "nearly a yard and a half long." After some haggling on Colling's part, which his wife bore very impatiently, Maynard agreed to part with the cow for twenty-eight guineas. She had been previously known as Favourite; Colling gave her the name of Lady Maynard. She was descended from a "black cow with a white belly and white legs to the knee," the daughter of a "gray-coloured cow" that Maynard remembered at Eryholme as a schoolboy in 1750. The change for the better had mainly been effected by a cross of a dark red bull "with black-brindled intermixed (337), bred by William Wastell in 1770.

By what he himself admitted to have been an extraordinary error of judgment-his first and his most fatal-Charles Colling, discouraged by fashion running more on size than on "quality,' sold Hubback (319), then ten years old, for thirty guineas to "Mr. Hubback, near Newbiggin, in Northumberland," 2 on October 28, 1787. He had put him to Duchess, Daisy, Cherry, and Lady Maynard, whom many thought the four best Shorthorn cows in existence. Four beautiful heifer calves followed; the white one from Lady Maynard, which Colling especially admired, met with an accident and died as a twoyear-old. He sold Hubback's son Foljambe (263) to George Coates for Mr. Foljambe for fifty guineas, on December 14, when he was twenty months old. Hubback had left at Barmpton a calf from Thomas Hall's heifer that grew up into "a little red-roan cow"; but only one of his calves besides Foljambe seems to have been spared as a bull at Ketton and only two at Barmpton, the red-roan Broken Horn (95), and Robert Colling's yellow-roan Lame Bull (358). Charles's dread of inbreeding seems still to have been so strong, and so little store did he set on Hubback's blood, that he exchanged his young

Hutchinson, Origin and Pedigrees of the Sockburn Shorthorns, p. 49.

2 Probably Mr. William Huggup of Spital House, near North Seaton. The name "Huggup" is locally pronounced "Hubbuck" in Northumberland, just as "Maughan" is "Maffin; Hodgson," "Hodgin," etc.

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bull by him with George Best of Manfield for Lame Bull (357), giving seven guineas into the bargain. With what bull or bulls Robert was second at Durham in 1787, and first in 1788, does not appear.

Dorothy Colling's management of her brother's household at Barmpton won the admiration of the neighbourhood. An early version of the Friend's matrimonial advice in Tennyson's "Northern Farmer," is contained in an extract from a letter dated May 4, 1788:

Thy cousin, Robert Colling, is a man of great abilities, and his sister, Miss Doe, is a worthy woman; perhaps thou mayst have the pleasure of seeing her here. A good wife is no worse for having an immense fortune. At least it is valuable in old age, and will keep the wolf from the door.

Alas for the vanity of human calculations! Poor Doe Colling was seized with rapid consumption, and about four months after this letter was written she was laid to rest, at the early age of twenty-six, beside her parents and her unfortunate sister in the churchyard of Haughton-le-Skerne.

In November 1788, Lady Maynard's daughter, Young Strawberry, dropped at Ketton a beautiful calf, blood-red with a little white, to Foljambe (263). It received the name of Lord Bolingbroke (86), and grew to be the best bull Coates ever saw, "cleanly and neat, though inclined to be podgy and rather low-sided." Colling too must have admired him, since getting him can have been the only "most good" that, as he told Coates, Foljambe (263) had done him of any "beast;" but though he kept Bolingbroke eight years he used him very little.

A five-year-old ox, bred and fed by Milbanke of Barningham, was still the great wonder of 1789. Its weight of over 177 stones, about the same as that of each of Sir Henry Grey's seven-year-old oxen, fed at Howick two years before, was considered to mark a great improvement. That same year General Watson of Aberdour, in Fifeshire, bought Princess by Hubback, a heifer of the same tribe as the great cow sold by Thomas Hall of Haughton to the Duchess of Athole, probably the first Shorthorn to cross the Tweed. In 1790 Charles Colling was again first with bulls at Durham; he sold his first two yearling bulls that year at Darlington, one (148?) to John Coates of Smeaton for 26l., and the other to R. Thomas of Eryholme for 231.; the latter won the first prize at Durham three years later. In April 1791 Charles sold Lame Bull (357) to Robertson of Ladykirk. He now had recourse to three bulls at Barmpton-Broken Horn (95), Punch (531), and Ben (70)— whose origin is almost as great a mystery as that of the "three

kings who were the sons of strangers," that are pitchforked into Welsh history in the seventh century. The double-cross of Hubback given to Broken Horn (95) by Coates in his Herd Book is an evident mistake. Charles Colling was positive that neither he nor his brother ever put a daughter to her sire until they used Favourite (252), and the whole history of his breeding operations confirms this. Punch (531) is said really to have been out of an ordinary cow that had belonged to old Charles Colling, and his produce to have shown Kyloe characteristics. There is strong independent evidence handed down from father to son that Ben (70) was bought at Stainton Viewley from the stock of Benjamin Ord. One thing, and only one thing, seems certain, that is that whatever their origin neither Broken Horn (95), Punch (531), nor Ben (70) effected any marked improvement in the Barmpton or Ketton herds. Indeed at this juncture Charles Colling seems to have despaired of improving his Shorthorns any further without the introduction of some alien blood. His neighbour, Colonel O'Callaghan, of Heighington, had bought two red Galloway heifers, and Charles allowed them to be served in 1791 by Lord Bolingbroke (80) on the express condition that if there was a bull calf he was to have it. The half-bred O'Callaghan's Son of Bolingbroke (469) accordingly came to Ketton and was not steered. Still the brothers Colling swept the boards at the Durham shows in 1792, Charles being first in the bulls and the cows, and Robert in the heifers. The next year they were appointed two of the judges, and therefore did not show themselves. It seems doubtful if their decisions gave satisfaction; in 1794 they were requested not to show, and the extraordinary step was taken of appointing all the members of the Durham Agricultural Society present to be the judges.

A "shyness" that had sprung up between the two brothers became so developed in March 1793 that when Mrs. Colling sent "her cow" Phoenix to be served by Ben (70) at Barmpton, Robert told the man: "I wonder your mistress should send a cow to my bull." There was nothing for it but to drive Phoenix back to Ketton. On her arrival, in order that she might have a calf of some sort, she was put to Lord Bolingbroke (86), although he was both her half-brother and her nephew. It was thus more than ten years after Charles Colling had paid his celebrated visit to Bakewell that he put in practice a system of close in-breeding among his Shorthorns. Even then his doing so, far from being intentional, was the accidental consequence of his strained relations with Barmpton. The experiment resulted in the birth of the light-roan bull Favourite (252) on