anks of the Trent, about a mile from Burton. He prided himself much in them, and they deserved the care which he took In improving them and keeping the breed pure; but a disease, which defied all remedial measures then known, broke out and carried off the greater part of them, thus half ruining Welby, and putting a final stop to his speculations.
"Soon after this Mr. Webster, of Canley, near Coventry, distinguished himself as a breeder. He too worked upon Sir Thomas Gresley's stock, some of whose cows he brought with him when he first settled at Canley. He was at considerable trouble in procuring bulls from Lancashire and Westmoreland, and he is said to have had the best stock of cattle then known. One of his admirers says that 'he possessed the best stock, especially of beace, that ever were, or ever will be bred in the kingdom.' … Little more is known of Mr. Webster than that he established the Canley breed, some portion of whose blood flowed in every improved long-horn beast.
"The bull, Bloxedge, the Hubback of the longhorns, and, like him, indebted to an accident for the discovery of his value, was out of a threeyear-old heifer of Mr. Webster's, by a Lancashire bull, belonging to a neighbour."
Now came Bakewell. He was born, "early in the year 1726, at the Grange, Dishley, two miles north of Loughborough, in the county of
