THE KING’S FARMING TRIUMPHS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 75

THE KING’S FARMING TRIUMPHS.

A WONDERFUL RECORD. (By Peiicy W, D. Izzabd, in the Daily Mail.) The King’s visit to the Royal Agricultural Show at Bristol to-day in his busiest month of the year is proof of hia Majesty’s great interest in agriculture. Those avlio know the King best are well aware that it was more than his high sense of duty which impelled him to spend half a day with the assembly of British farmers on Clifton Downs. The personal interest and pleasure which King''Ed ward evinced in his own farms and in agricultural matters generally is shown in no less degree by King George, who had inherited the progressive agricultural spirit of his father and grandfather when he became owner of the fine farms at Windsor, Sandringham, and Abergeldie. —Successes With Prize Pigs. —

It must be remembered also that_ the King is an exhibitor, and one who is as gratified as any at the successes which come to his flocks and herds. The fact that his Majesty has been exhibiting farm stock for 20 years is not generally realised. His first exhibit was of Berkshire pigs at the Smithfield Club’s Show of 1893, the year in which he became a member and was elected a vice-president of the club. Two years later his Berkshire*-; secured him a fat stock championship, while in 1897 he offered the challenge cup which is still the premier award for pigs. Until he came to the throne his Majesty showed pigs exclusively; but now he is one of the largest breeders and exhibitors of pedigree farm stock in the country. Since he became King the list of his personal successes, begun with that Smith - 'field championship in 1895, has been augmented very considerably, the latest championship being the one gained by his roan shorthorn heifer Windsor Belle at Bristol last Tuesday.

—The Wonderful “Windsor Belle.”— Windsor Belle is the pride of the pedigree shorthorn herd (established by the Prince Consort in 1853) kept on the Shaw Farm, close to the castle, at Windsor, and now numbering about 70 head. I was at the farm the day before the “Royal’ opened, and learned something of the keenness of all, from the highest to the lowest, who have tlie management care of the King’s animals, that they shall come out well and make a good showing before the judges. „ , , Tho handsome heifer Windsor Belle had won two championships already at the Royal Counties Show, the latter one three weeks previously, when that event was held practically on her own soil in the Home Park, and the King’s stock took six firsts among about 16 prizes. It was not known what “ dark horses ” might come out against her at Bristol; but I gathered that the telegram announcing the result of months of preparatory work would be awaited with just the same eagerness at Windsor as at the humbler farm, where so much may turn on the winning of a prize. Bv the King’s command the Roval farms are managed on the same lines and tradition as under King Edward. The visitor to Windsor or Sandringham is struck by tho strictly utilitarian aspect of tho farms. What stamps their Royal ownership is the progressive practicability of everything. Of futile ostentation there is none-—indeed, the farms are an ohiectlc«son in interpretation of die Royal Arrricnltural Societv’s well-known motto: “Practice with Science.”

At Windsor the Shnw Farm. with its shorthorns, is the principal of a group of farms which extend 'o 1500 acres. Many are the prizes which this herd has won in the show-ring from the Prince Consort’s time downwards. One year their winnings exceed'd £9t>o. while a record kept down to about 10 years ago shows a total of more than £12.000. The Great Dairy Farm.—

At some distance across the park is the picturesquely-situated Flemish Farm, where the Kin" now has some 60 Herefords and 40 Devons, from each of which herds prize-winners were sent to Bristol. Then there is the Royal Dairy Farm with it? 40 pedigree Jerseys and 30 dairy shorthorns. Here 60 cows—3o Jerseys and 30 shorthorns —are milked every day to sunnlv the castle and Buckingham Palace. There is also at Windsor a flock of some 300 half-bred ewes for breeding fat lambs; and the King has nine or 10 shorthorns. Herefords, and Devons in preparation for the fat-stock shows.

It was at Sandringham, as Duke of York and Prince of Walrs. that the King’s earlier farming enterprises were centred. Here he bred his prize Berkshire pigs, and hence went the pigs which secured him honours at Bristol. There has for long been a successful herd of shorthorns at his Majesty’s Norfolk demesne, a herd which supnlied the first prize yearling bull which in 1896 King Edward, then Prince of Wales, sold to a South American buver for IOOOgs. Similar success has followed the herds of neat little Dexters and picturesque West Highland cattle maintained on the Sandringham estate, where also Jerseys are kept for the dairy. But the Royal farms in Norfolk are chiefly renowned in the farm stock world for their fine stud of heavy horses and flock of Southdown sheep. The stiid of Shires is one of the oldest, largest, and most widely famous in exis-

tence. It has sent out innumerable prizewinners and established several records at the annual sales. The Southdown flock, founded by King Edward in. 1866, added further honours at Bristol to a list of prizes and championships which extends back for nearly 30 years. Thoroughbred Stud at Sandringham. — Sandringham, of course, is connected inseparably in other spheres of interest with the thoroughbred stud which produced the Derby winners Persimmon and Diamond Jubilee, whose parentage, racing triumphs, and winnings (in the former case no less than £54,706) are inscribed, together with the names of the trainer, stud groom, and jockey, on brass plates attached to their boxes.

At the farm of Abergeldie, on Deeside, the King maintains the fin© Aberdeen and Angus herd established by Queen Victoria, and thus the Royal farms together contain cattle thoroughly representative of Great Britain and Ireland.

During the last three years t vr*> additions have been made to the farm lands under Royal care. Last September the King bought the Shernborne BLall Farm, consisting of about 700 acres, mostly of fine barley land, situated on the north side of Sandringham. He thus completed a purchase made by King Edward eight yeans before, when his late Majesty added to the Sandringham estate the whole of the parish of Shernborne, with the exception of the Hall Farm.

The other acquisition, no doubt encour aged, if not initiated by the King, was the Whiteford Model Farm, close to Callington, Cornwall, founded as an estate for the Prince of Wales, to be run on scientific lines for the benefit of the empties _of Cornwall and Devon. It is the intention to specialise here in the best pedigree stock, and particularly with agricultural horses and Devon cattle. Two other of the numerous instances of the King’s warm interest in all farming matters may be mentioned. Almost as soon as he came to the throne he expressed his concern at the decline in light horse-breeding, and offered a cup for the best winner of a King’s Premium at the Islington Show. And, like King Edward, anxious to embrace agriculture within the salutary influence of the Entente Cordiale. he has become a foreign associate of the French National Agricultural Society.