EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 539 



the best specimens of Scotch breeding are quickly picked up by the more 

 prominent breeders and exhibitors, who have ample funds to enable 

 them to skim the cream, leaving thin milk for those who do not feel able 

 to invest so much in the richer product. In other words, there are not 

 enough good Short-horns of the so-called "pure" or "straight" Scotch 

 breeding to go half way around. As a matter of fact the bulls of this 

 blood have now been used in America so long that it is not difficult to 

 find cattle that have been so strongly topped out with Aberdeenshire bulls 

 that the progeny is, for all practical purposes, just as useful as animals 

 tracing in all directions to the original Scottish stock. It is most la- 

 mentable that better judgment is not used in this matter. It is ob- 

 viously good sense for a buyer of limited means to purchase one of the 

 so-called Scotch-topped American-bred animals if he be a good individual 

 and carries upward of 85 per cent of the desired blood, in preference to 

 picking up one that can be rated as "pure" Scotch but which at the 

 same time may be wanting in the first essentials of a good Short-horn. 

 The more frequent use of the tabulated pedigree will tend to a more 

 rational balancing of values in these cases and we commend it to all 

 who are starting out to buy a bull. 



If any proof is needed to show that Scotch cattle carrying so-called 

 "outcrosses" should not be turned down simply on that account, it is 

 afforded in abundance by reference to the breeding of the champion 

 animals in the Short-horn class at the late International exposition. The 

 great senior champion bull Whitehall Marshall 209776, bred by Mr. Kelly 

 and shown by Mr. Harding, is out of a so-called straight Scotch cow, imp. 

 Missie 167th, bred by the late Mr. Marr. His sire, Whitehall Sultan, famous 

 throughout all America not only as a show bull but as one of the most 

 extraordinary stock-getters of the present day, while bred by Mr. Dean 

 Willis, the great manipulator of the Cruickshank blood in the south of 

 England, receives through his sire, Bapton Sultan 163570, several in- 

 fusions of the blood of English cattle that never saw Aberdeenshire. As 

 a matter of fact Mr. Willis — who as a constructive breeder of Short-horns 

 probably has no peer on either side of the water at the present time — 

 has had marked success in outcrossing the Scotch cattle that form the 

 foundation of his great herd. 



Now nobody in America will regard these infusions of English Short- 

 horn blood as detracting five cents' worth from the admitted value of Mr. 

 Harding's splendid bull; that is to say, if an outcross is put in by a man 

 residing anywhere in Great Britain, Ireland or any other country across the 

 sea, "it goes" without any question from anybody on this side of the water; 

 but if any American breeder, no matter how intelligent or experienced, 

 has the courage to pursue a similar course and secures like results, 

 his work is criticised, his animals are sacrificed when they come into the 

 sale ring and he is either driven back into the "straight" and narrow 

 path marked out for him by our "purists," or he quits the business in 

 disgust. In other words we allow old country breeders greater liberties 

 than we permit ourselves to indulge in. The English or Scotch breeders 

 can pick their bulls anywhere in the Kingdom, without regard to their 

 breeding, and we on this side accept the cross, whatever it may be, 

 without a murmer, even though it may have been put on by the most in- 



