When Faversham talked of bullocks, he did so as one of the leading breeders and exhibitors of short-horn cattle; animals from the Duncombe Park herd won prizes at Smithfield, at the Royal Agricultural Show, and at the Paris International Exposition of 1855, although he came to deplore the prevalence of judging criteria which led to prizes going to animals which had been over-fattened, to the detriment of their health and that of the breed. He was deeply involved with the Royal Agricultural Society, serving as its president in 1863–4, and with the Smithfield Show Club (president in 1862) as well as local and county agricultural shows. His final parliamentary speech was (in 1866) an attack on the inadequacy of the government's response to the current cattle plague outbreak: