318 STATE BOARD OF AGKICULTURE. 



well-bred Herefords." To this Mr. Miller, of Illinois, in a communication to 

 the Journal, adds: ''This testimony, given thirty -eiglit years ago, has been 

 made complete up to June, 1878 ;" and it is alike favorable to the Herefords. 

 Mr. Miller has kindly furnished me with extracts from a letter received by him 

 from a Mr. Price, of Australia, dated August, 1877. lie says : 



"I live sixty miles from Adelaide, where our stock fairs are held, and have 

 to travel my stock tliat distance. I have taken the lion's share of i)rizes when 

 I have shown. For three years I have taken the champion prize over Short- 

 horns. I have sold twenty bulls within three or four years. I have just sent 

 one to "West Australia, 1,500 miles by sea. I sold, three, three years ago, to 

 one of the large squatters. They turned out so well that he wanted six more 

 last year, and he is well pleased with them." 



"But I must tell you something about the beef, for, after all, that is what 

 wo breed for. I have been in the habit of selling my steers at two years and 

 six months. Last year I sold them at £14. This year I sold them at £15 — 

 much above the price of any Shorthorn sales ; in fact, very few Shorthorns go 

 to market here under five or six years old, and then seldom make that price, 

 except picked lots — and / keep my lest for bulls. The year before last I kept 

 a part of my steers over. They brought at three years old a fraction under 

 £32 each.-' 



''New South Wales is, however, the place for Herefords. I have acted there 

 as Judge for the last two years. The year before last there was shown at Sidney 

 the best lot of yearling heifers I ever saw together. I wrote Mr. Duckham 

 that if Herefordshire had been over here, it could not have produced eight such 

 heifers as I had to award on. The year before last twenty-one yearling buUs 

 Avere shown, and all good ones. The first prize bull was one year and three 

 days old, and sold to a Victoria cattle man for 500 guineas. The same man 

 bought one of the heifers for 300 guineas, two for 250 guineas each, and two 

 for 150 guineas each, making in all about l,lc0 guineas — about $5,750 — for 

 five yearlings, and offered 700 guineas for a seven-months-old calf, which the 

 owner refused." "AVith the exception of the bulls, my cattle never get any- 

 thing but what they get off the run or range." "For six months they have 

 nothing but roast meat — not a living blade of grass all through the summer. 

 And yet, they are always fit for the butcher, even when suckling calves." 



"As I could not get Herefords when I commenced cattle breeding, I got 

 Shorthorns, intending to keep both breeds, but I found they lost so much 

 flesh when suckling their calves, (they would not take the bull for six months 

 after calving), that I sold them all out, and went wholly into my favoi'ite 

 white-faces, in wliich I intend to continue to the end ; wliich, by the course of 

 years, cannot be long, as I am now seventy-two years old. 



(Signed) C. Pkice." 



From Jamaica, Mr. Edwards, of Knockalva, writes; "We have Herefords 

 which I have rarely, if ever, seen beaten at any agricultural show in England. 

 As regards their aptitude to fatten, there is no stock in this country to compare 

 with them, and for early maturity they stand unrivalled. All our cattle are 

 grass fed, and receive no artificial food." 



*'Our three-year-old steers weigh from 700 to 800 pounds, carcass weight, 

 temperature in summer stands 00'^ in the shade, and in winter I have never 

 known it lower than 57°." 



From Scotland we have the same general testimony. ]\Ir. Lumsden, of Ab- 

 erdeen, writes: " I liave been a breeder of Herefords for twenty-five years, and 



