FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 217 



for, and buying grade Hereford bulls from coinnioa cows, at prices beyond 

 Avbat they can purchase thoroughbred Shorthorn bulls for, and still the supply 

 of thoroughbred or grade bulls is very much short of demand, and the supply 

 for the next season is nearly exhausted." ''I have sold for next season's use 

 already some sixty bulls. To one man, fifty for SJ^lljCOO." In May last he sold 

 to the Messrs. Swan, of Colorado, forty young bulls, for immediate use, for 

 $10,00U. 



The Editor of this paper asks the question that I am asking : Why is it, 

 " that while Shorthorn bulls can be bought at from $100 to 8150 (and you see 

 lie can split those figures on ours, and call it ^50 and $;75), of the most reputa- 

 ble breeders, men whose experience dates back fifty years, and whose boast re- 

 specting their stock and its value is not the growth of a day, but a century; 

 why, then, should men pay from three to four times these prices for a breed un- 

 tried and comparatively unknown?" 



This question is being asked not alone by the Editor of this Journal, but by 

 Shorthorn men throughout the whole country, here in Michigan as well as in 

 Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. I have answered it already. It 

 is because of their merits. But a more extensive review of their past history, 

 and tiieir standing in the country where they originated, as well as in those 

 countries lo which they have been imported, including our own, may aid us in 

 shedding some light on this important question now agitating the minds of 

 breeders, and feeders, and grazers of cattle all over this broad land. 



" Untried and unknown," says the editor of the Journal. 



Is it so? Is it not a matter of record that at the first show for fat cattle of 

 the Smithfield Club, held in England in 1799, that the winner of the first prize 

 was a Hereford ox fed by a Mr. Wcstcar? And in Bell's WeeJcIi/ Messenger for 

 May, 1857, you Avill find it recorded that this same feeder of Hereford cattle 

 took the first prize with a Hereford ox for twenty years in succession, from 

 1799 until 1819, at the London Cattle Show, which was open to all breeds in 

 the Kingdom. In this same letter we are told that a Mr. Potter sold to Mr. 

 Westcar fifty Hereford oxen, in Christmas Cattle Market, that averaged fifty 

 guineas each ; and Mr. Duckham gives a list of twenty, sold by Mr. Westcar 

 from 1799 to 1811, that averaged £10G Os. each, about 1531 of our money. lu 

 the year 1825 a challenge by the Duke of Bedford, who was a breeder of Here- 

 fords, to show three of his steers against any three Durhams in the Kingdom, 

 was accepted b.y Sir Chas. Arbuthnot, a celebrated Shorthorn breeder, and was 

 won by the Herefords. Many such challenges are reported ; but I need only 

 add that from the establishment of the Smithfield Club, in 1799, till 1851, the 

 Herefords took 185 prizes, while the Shorthorns took 82, the Devons 44, the 

 Scotch 43, the Sussex 9. Jjong Horns 4 and Cross Breeds 8, thus giving to all 

 other breeds combined only five more prizes, in fifty years, than those awarded 

 to the Herefords alone. As to the quality of the beef in those years, I quote 

 what Mr. Guenier said in 1840 : 



*''I take this opportunity to state that during twenty years' experience as a 

 salesman of cattle of all breeds in the Smithfield market, where I have sold 

 from 5,000 to 10,000 cattle per annum, I could not persuade my best West- 

 End customers to purchase Durhams, when I had well-bred Herefords ; they 

 one and all said they found more roasting, as compared with boiling, in the 

 Herefords. Last Christmas I had Durhams fifteen stone per ox heavier than 

 Hereford, but I could not realize so much, by four pence per stone of eight lbs., 

 as for the Herefords. I never found any breed of cattle more profitable than 



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