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CONCERNING HORSES AND POTATOES. Tlie news that Mr. J. B. Joel has sold North Star for export to America is serious, indeed, for if a wealthv owner will let one of tlie best of the year go how can the smaller owners he expected to refrain. I think it is not too much to say that had -we been assured of a Derby at Epsom and a St. Loger at Doncaster next year Mr. Joel would never have sold his good colt, and, in this connection, let me once again ask the Jockey Club stewards why they do not ordain that the Derby, Oaks and St. Lcger entries shall hold good, though the races may for convenience sake he run at Newmarket. I his would save a lot of trouble and would more definitely earmark the races as being the genuine classics than under the timid, makeshift scheme of the last two vears. The Jockey Club stewards can do just what they like in such matters, and no one vould he in the least likely to object. The Derby is the Derbv. wherever run, just as the Eton and Harrow match would retain its individuality wherever it might be played. Tlie question is urgent, for owners of good two-year-olds would not be likelv to sell them if the classic races were more clearlv marked in their continuity. Ordinary purchases for abroad we can all accept as proper busi-i.ess. Tims I bought Wormleighton last week to go to America, and Mrs. Freville Cooksons promising vearling colt by Javelin Amphinome sister in Mood to Sundridge to go to America, but this is a different matter from selling the Middle Park Plate winner, as Mr. Joel lias done, and I take this as a jar, indeed, to the prospects of breeding and racing in this country. , I suppose we shall be told next that we ought to eat our horses and, apropos, let me suggest, in regard to potatoes, that it is an idiotic practice to pars them when raw before cooking. Potntoes should alwavs he cooked with their jackets on, and they should bo steamed or baked, but never boiled in water. The last-named process, which takes place after two-thirds of the potato has been cut away in parings, simply spoils the remainder, whereas a steamed potato, off which the skin flakes away like a wafer, is quite a dream by comparison with its sodden, boiled fellow. In this I give a really first-rate tin, and it is little short of marvellous how the ofd practice of steaming potatoes in their jackets has gone out. Talk about economy, why, it saves a third of the potato, and the whole thing is immeasurably superior to the water-logged tuber. How well does one remember old-time suppers at Evans, when a waiter would bring you potatoes in a snowy nankin and squeeze them out on your plate almost like flakes of snow. Fancy trying to do that witli a "boiled" potato! You might as well try a boiled turnip. Now, Mr. Runcinian. please take note of the above, for it means sound rmnoHiy and more satisfaction to all who eat potatoes ard who does not? As to British bloodstock, I am sorry to learn that Claymore, a good two-vear-old colt by Great Scott out of that good little inure, Glenlivet, succumbed to the troubles of the frightful recent storm in the Bay of Biscay while he was on the voyage to Gibraltar. It is not often that blood horses collapse in such circumstances, but tlie weather was dreadfully bad, all the ships deck cargo was swept away, together with two of her life boats, and I daresay the colts box may have been broken up, but details have not yet been re- Atthe moment oA writing I have received the record of the OJo di Agua "products" in Buenos Aires. Six Cylleue coPU averaged 1,382 pounds, and six Cyllenc fillies 417 pounds each. Polar Stars stock were not in much demand. Four colts averaged 578 pounds, and six fillies 374 pounds. A colt by Your Majesty made 2,444 pounds, and a colt by .Tardy 1,48-1 pounds. The grand total averaged CG4 pounds for thirty-six lots. W. Allison, in London Sportsman.
