No Sloane Ranger would consider her wardrobe complete without a pair. Members of the hunting-and-fishing set are rarely seen in any other footwear. This insignia of English country life, the Hunter Wellington boot, has now made an unusual crossover: into the cow shed.
Cornish farmer Stephen Angwin had been troubled by the number of hobbling heifers among his herd of Friesian cattle. The high-protein diet required by modern dairy farming stimulates extra growth in the hooves, making them vulnerable to cracking during the cows' winter confinement in concrete-floored farmyards. So Angwin called up the Gates Rubber Co. in Scotland, maker of...