The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-07 00:00:00

THE yofflittitritE AGRICULTURAL wow.

It is the accepted custom of most shorthorn
men who motel days from tlie harvest to
whet their Y t the Royal ligtioultural
Elbow, and follow the stock to their great court of
appeal in Yorkshire. many owners in every
department " move forma new trial" that it is
now wia ely made a condition of ameptanoe of
offioe in Yorkshire that the judge should not have
acted at the Royal that summer. The society's
venue this year wee in Captain Gunter's park at
Wetherly Giange, a very pretty spot, flanked by
the wharf. The town has not often hid its
capacity so thoroughly tested, crew when the
Great Nati( nal Steeplechase was held near these,
ever the moat perfect of courses. It came out very'
grand with flags and laurel arches, and a por-
trait ( f the 1,000 guineas Duchess heifer,
which Captain Gunter has just sold to Mr.
Camert n, of Montreal, was a leading object in
one of the bookseller's windows. This capital.
red heifer, which bag all the minute white marks
that distinguished the original Duchosa tribe,
bad many visitors in the fold-yard. The hundred
guinea COMOII of her Transatlantic travels is
arfdale Rose, a heifer calf with two emcee of
bales, but so well " got up," and so good, that
one of: the judges did not scruple to say that she
could have won the first calf prize in the short-
horn class that day. Her dam, Duchess 92nd,
tree ip the next box, IMUllinisa wan heifer calf,*
Duchess 103rd, of two ye old; and her
grand dam, Duchess 84th, stood on the oppo-
site side of the yard, side by side with
Duchess 100th, 99th, and 98th and 96th, the latter
the last calf of Duchess 77th, to whose allow-yard
prowess the Wetheily herd owca its fame. It
was, in short, quite a classic retreat for the lovers
of shorthorns ; and Bates, Booth, and Townley
men all allowed that Mr. Cameron had picked a
red beauty fur his money.

The yard arrangements were good, and some
363 homes, besides other stock, policemen,
and attendents, bivouacked under canvas.
The home-boxes were on throe sides of the
yard, and formed complete stables, and the
other stock was in the middle. At nine on
Wednesday the shorthorn judges began their
labours by bowling over Mr. Tom Booth's crack
bull Commander-in-Chief, and bringing up the
second at Leicester over his head. It was
quite a sensation decision, and many would hardly
believe it. Still, several of the old breeders have
never liked the head, skin, and tail head of the
Warleby bull, and thought that to a roast beef and
boiling point the white beat him. Mr. Folgarate
won two first prizes with young bulls, and
there was nothing to stand against his red calf,
Knight of the Crescent when the bull cup was
decided. Orberton has always been strong in
bulls of Booth descent, but here it took the cup
with one, which had been beaten by its herdmate
at the Royal. The female shorthorn classes con-
sisted of two good and two very bad ones. Mr.
Booth's Lady Fragrant went easily away from
everything in the cow class, and won the female
cup as well • but the contest was long and fierce
between Mr. Booth's yearling heifers, Patricia and
Lady Gaiety, and Mr. Rowe's Lady Anne. When
the decision was given it exactly reversed the
placing of Lady Gaiety and Lady Anne at the
Royal, and loft Patricia where she was. The
last scene of all was the appearance of
a great shorthorn steer, and a Brahma
ox about the size of a good sheep, to which the
white and green rosettes were duly awarded as
extra stock, and then the curtain dropped on a
very memorable morning.
Mr. Barton cleared nearly everything in the
Leicester clamed, and Mr. Cresawell in vain tried
to reverse the Leicester fiats. Mr. Ring Tombs
brought his Magog of a Cotswold and won every-
thing be tried for with his flock, and so did Mr.
Peel with his Mountain Links, one of which lay
covered up in a blue sheet. A black sheep
from Galilee was a peat ourioaity on ac-
count of its tail, winch its " Mend, philo-
sopher, and guide," described as a mixture of
marrow and fat, good meat, and weighing 141bs.
No Southdowns were tempted so far north, even
by 55/., and the " &Tops " were only_a poorish
lot. The old names, Mangles, Dyson,
Hagar, and Eden, all won with pigs, among which
the sows of the big breed expecially excelled,
although they were not equal to those shown at
York in 1866. This seems the great test meeting,
and both pigs and horses failed when it wad
applied. Royal Oak, Mr. Dyson's first prize large
boar, was a " porcine Esau " in point of hair, and
had a very beautiful head ; and two sows of the
small breed were specially marked by the judges.
The great falling off was in hair, and judges will
not dispense with it. One pig was so lame that
he could not rise to receive them, so his third prize
as referred to the committee.

The horse entries numbered 363, but there was
a lack of strength in many of the classes. In one
for young hunters the judges selected five, but
nearly all of them were afflicted with curbs or
bog sprivins, and Professor Spooner was obliged
to be remarkable lenient to enable them to place a
first and second at all. Angelus cut down all
opposition again in the thoroughbred sire class.
but the field was not strong, seeing that rmg
Brian and Grand Master were second and third to
him. Laughing Stock, who looked beautiful, came
from Cumberland to do little, but the Stockwell
blood had not the same luck as at Newcastle,
when he beat Gamester and Cavendish. Sir George
Chomley, the owner of Angelus, is the oldest
horse breeder in Yorkshire, and is scattering his
chestnuts broadcast, through this chestnut son of
Orpheus. The tykes seem long-lived, as he and
Mr. Samuel Wiley, the oldest shorthorn, pig,
and Leicester breeder in the county, average 90
years between them. The coach-horse sire class
was good, and headed by " a ripper" in young
Ebor, a bay, like all those heroes of Hoyden,
which seem to take in no other county. The two
and three year old coaching classes were
and a rare coaching brood mare was indulged with
walk over. Agricultural sires were middling ;
agricultural mares, with foals, all good,
and Comedian, by Motley, of Cumber-
land celebrity, a capital breed to the
3-yr-old coachers. Two pair of draft horses came
well to the fore of their clam The first, a pair of
greys, were almost unsurpassable, but in the
second pair, the chestnut, which was perhaps the
finest carthorse in the yard, was spoilt by its black
yoke-fellow. In the 3-yr-old filly class there was
a grand first prize grey filly, with action like a
pony. The judging on the first day concluded with
the 4-yr-old hunter colts and fillies, both of which
were won by Mr. John Booth, one with his
Brigadier, which has.cerried off nearly 2001. in
prizes and a cup within six weekly, and was lately
sold to Mr. Hall, of the Holdernese. His Bird elf
Eve, by The Drake, a horse of Lord Glasgow's,
made her first 4-yr-old appearance with
equal success. She is half sister to Bird of
Passage, a name of dread in the Yorkshire songs
two years ago. No one has a finer patent than
" John o' the Beanie," in picking up and bring-
ing good and ripe winners into the ring, and the
two brothers, one in shorthorns and one in horses,
can fairly throw down the show gauntlet to
Yorkshire. The five year old heavy weight hun-
ter class brought Lady Derwent to the front once
more. Service on the rail seems to suit her constitu-
tion, as we never saw her look better. Still she
is not a very nice one to ride, and when the
judges applW that test at Peterborough, she was
beaten easily by Mr. Thompson of the Pytchly's
Iris. Mr. Thompson had Borderer in her close
to-day, but he had been taken ill in the yard the
nightbefore,anddidnotahowto advantage. Thence
he only took beck a third to the Brixworth stables,
where Mr. Thompson has 37 horses, waiting till
the Pytchley woodlands are " stripped for busi-
nem" once more. The five-yew-old class for
hunters Lip _to 12 stone was adjudged to Mr.
Lumley ltodgaon's chestnut Highthorn, who, as
far substance and action went, might well have
betel in the 14-stone class. The six-year-old pro-
duced a great struggle between four—lris, Moun-
*in Dew, Sprig of Nobility, and Bcningboro'.
Tlierjedges had the saddles'off, and then they
ordered them on again, sent the quartet seine
strong gallops round the ring. in which Iris,
beautifully handled by the head groom, went

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