Thomas Bates, who was so frequently at Ketton and Barmpton, and was a great advocate for West Highland crosses at the time, must have known it, and have alluded to it in his private notes and correspondence.

The compilation of the Herd Book was taken up in real earnest at a meeting held in Darlington in February 1820. It was foreseen that unless the entries were read over to Charles Colling in the presence of two or three witnesses, and his remarks taken down, disputes would be endless. In spite of this warning Whitaker gave Coates a letter to Colling (for the two had not been on amicable terms), and he called at Monkend alone in the summer of 1823. The first time, he found Charles very unwell and quite unable to enter into the various pedigrees. A few days later he called again, and had some conversation with him; but this was all, and he received no warranty. Indeed, neither at Ketton nor at Barmpton do there seem to have been any regular records kept of the herds. In answer to inquiries Charles Colling wrote from Monkend, May 19, 1820 :—

Mr. William Robson has looked over my brother's papers, and has not been able to find anything like a pedigree of his stock that goes further than the catalogue of his sale, which will be the only sure ground for Mr. Coates to go upon.

It was only an old acquaintance with some preliminary knowledge of his own who could draw satisfactory information on Shorthorn history from the recesses of Charles's memory.

By his original will of 1813 Charles Colling had left 2,0001. to his brother Robert, 201. each to his cousins, the Misses Hall of Northallerton, 20l. to the poor of Brafferton, and the residue to his wife. This short and simple will he republished, “any act to the contrary notwithstanding," four times without any allusion to his brother being dead, and with the only change, an addition of a legacy of 50l. to John Trotter of Hallgarth, in 1823. After more than fifty years of happy married life Charles Colling died in his eighty-sixth year, on January 16, 1836. His widow survived till April 25, 1850, when she was upwards of eighty-seven.

The Collings were not the founders of a new breed of cattle, but they were the collectors and preservers of the best remaining specimens of an ancient breed that would otherwise have disappeared. That ancient breed had absorbed various infusions of blood, the marked characteristics of which became, in the course of time, associated with other breeds. It was only a wise and unsparing selection that could rescue the animals that bred back to their Shorthorn ancestors, through a prepotent atavism altogether out of proportion to the exact fraction of

blood, and only a resolute and unflinching system that could reconstitute the original breed with the materials so rescued. The idea of "quality," or handling, was the principle that directed the Collings in their selection, and "in-breeding," which they appear in their own case to have initiated rather than imitated, was the system they employed. It was not a popular system, and though the adoption of it was likely to injuriously affect the value of their cattle, they did not attempt to shroud. it in mystery. It was a system attended with great physical dangers, but there is no reason to suppose that the use they made of it impaired the constitutional vigour of their herds.

They were, perhaps, not men of a high order of intellect; they left no journals nor correspondence on which to found their biographies, and occasional loose memoranda appear to have been all the notes they kept of their breeding operations. Robert was a model all-round farmer-good cattle, good sheep, good crops, neat hedges, neat farm-buildings. Charles was, it is said, more or less of a "sloven;" but the Barmpton herd, we are told, was never so good as the Ketton, being inferior in size, ribs, and "quality." Robert was contemptuously called "the sheep-man" by his sister-in-law's friends. It was the restriction of his work to Shorthorns, and the assistance he received in it from his excellent wife, that enabled Charles to take the lead of his elder brother as a specialist. It is the fashion now to talk of the Brothers Colling, but this makes it all the more necessary to insist on the important part taken by Charles Colling's wife in the evolution of the Improved Shorthorn.

Robert must have been an especially noble character, the very soul of honour: an intimate friend of both brothers, who was a fierce critic of all human frailties, only once found anything to complain of in Charles's conduct, and never anything in Robert's. The baronial hospitality of "the Prince of Skerne, as Robert was called, became proverbial. Notwithstanding Robert's mercantile training, Charles was more of the business man, more versatile both in opinion and practice. Both knew not only how to adapt an ancient breed of cattle to the requirements of their day, but also how to place it most advantageously before the public. "No breeders acted with so much foresight and sound policy," Hutchinson sarcastically observed, "for who but themselves would have thought of feeding any animal from calf-hood until seven years of age, in so extravagant a manner as the White Heifer was fed . . . . She was shown all over the kingdom like a wild beast; and raised the character of their breed, in the opinion of the world, to the highest pitch of

3

eminence." In the well-known mezzotint of the worthy pair,2 Robert, it has been remarked, is particularly good-looking, with features expressive of an honest, upright man; Charles is less handsome, his face has not an equal frankness. They left no memoirs, they left no descendants-those on the spot have forgotten whether it was Robert or Charles that lived at Ketton; the water-trough and pillars of Weaver's picture have survived at Barmpton, but no one remembers having heard of the "White Heifer that Travelled." On the other hand, the race of cattle the Collings restored and remodelled keeps well to the fore; in Shorthorns generally they have found the monument their labours deserved, a monument that lasts and lives.

Langley Castle, Northumberland.

CADWALLADER J. BATES.

THE progress of fruit production in this country during the last twenty years is not to be measured merely by the official statistics, which show the expansion approximately. In the first place, since 1891 the Agricultural Returns have been collected only from holdings of more than one acre, whereas from 1869 to 1891 inclusive they were obtained from all holdings of a quarter of an acre or more. This change affected statistics of fruit much more than those of ordinary farm crops, as there are multitudes of holdings less than an acre in extent upon which fruit is grown. Again, there has been an immense amount of

Origin and Pedigrees of the Sockburn Shorthorns, p. 45.

2 By Thomas Weaver, probably painted in 1811 at the same time as the picture of the White Heifer. This was Engraved on Steel by William Ward, A.R.A., Engraver to his Majesty and to H.R.H. the Duke of York," and "Pub. lished December 12, 1825, by John Thompson, Smeaton, Yorkshire," and subsequently republished by Thompson in September 1831. There is an engraving of Charles Colling by G. Cook, from a portrait by I. M. Wright, in the Farmer's Magazine, February 1844.

Allen, History of the Short-Horn Cattle, p. 94.

4 The two preceding sections of this report, dealing with Flower Farming, were published in the Journal last year (3rd series, vol. ix., 1898) at p. 286 (in Part II.) and p. 512 (in Part III.).—ED.

fruit planting in the gardens of persons living in the suburbs of towns who, probably, are not invited to make returns, even if their grounds exceed an acre in extent. In the third place, in consequence of the introduction of improved varieties of fruit and the better cultivation and treatment of plantations, the production per acre has become much greater than it was twenty years ago.

The area under orchards in Great Britain was first given in the Agricultural Returns in 1871, when it was far from being accurate, as mentioned in the returns of the following year. As one proof of inaccuracy, it may be remarked that 23,033 acres were returned as the area of orchards in Wales in 1871. This area was reduced to 10,680 acres in 1872, and still it was far too large, as it was brought down to 3,052 acres in the following year, though without a word of explanation. Probably the extent of orchards in Wales was still over-rated in 1873, as in 1878 it was returned at only 2,646 acres. The returns for England were less fluctuating; but they were altered from 176,685 acres in 1871 to 156,007 acres in 1872, and to 143,295 acres in 1873. However, taking 1873 as the first year in which the statistics were approximately accurate, the figures for that year are compared in the table on the next page with those of 1878, 1888, and 1898. With respect to the several counties of England the figures for Wales as a whole are also compared; and although my investigation does not extend to Scotland, it will be of some interest to notice the increase of orchards in that country and in the whole of Great Britain.

A steady expansion of orchards set in after 1873 in England, an increase having been returned every year except in 1888 and 1892, and the apparent decrease in 1888 was attributed in the returns for that year-the first in which statistics of small fruit were collected-to a small area, previously returned erroneously as orchard land, having been transferred to its proper place in the small fruit division. For Wales an expansion has been returned since 1875 in every year except 1888, 1892, and 1898; but the figures for Scotland have fluctuated, the total for that country being lower for 1894 than for 1873, though since 1894 it has increased by 292 acres.

According to these statistics, the increase of land devoted to orchards, even in England, has been less rapid during the last decade than in the preceding one, or than in the half decade ending with 1878. During the last twenty years the English area alone is represented as having increased by about 59,000 acres, or nearly 3,000 acres per annum. As there has been an expansion during that period in every county except