G4 AMERICAN CATTLE. 



five hundred years afterwards! This may all be possible, and 

 the Hereford breed of cattle, if original in Wales, may have 

 existed time immemorial, for, as they say that certain Welsh 

 families trace their pedigrees back anterior to Adam, we may 

 . give a pretty remote date to the origin of their cattle ! 



Mr. Duckham farther remarks: "An old and much respected 

 friend of mine, the late Mr. Welles, also entertained the idea 

 that they were originally self-colored (red) like the Devons, and 

 'that the breed characterized as the mottle-faced, took its origin 

 from a mixture of the old self-colored, with some accidentally 

 possessing white marks.' As regards the white cows with red 

 ears, I think the light grey, or white Hereford, may fairly be 

 considered to be descended from them; and there are red-with- 

 white-face breeders, who advance that they can trace them as 

 being the breed of their ancestors, for the past two hundred years." 



Be all these facts, traditions, or surmises, as they may, these 

 grey and white colors now appear in cattle bearing all other 

 marks of true Herefords, and they must be admitted as indi- 

 geneous to the breed. Some of the very best specimens of the 

 race have been of those lighter and mixed colors. 



In our researches among English authorities, we find less said 

 of the Hereford, its history, and breeding, than almost any other 

 well known breed. Youatt devotes but four pages to them, 

 knowing little of them himself, and having not much information 

 from others. What we have gleaned from English accounts, is 

 chiefly in fugitive papers and magazines, by sundry writers and 

 breeders; but more fortunately for the present purpose, we have 

 had several years' close and almost daily observation, in a herd 

 of imported Herefords and their descendants, which were kppt 

 near us, as well as of occasional observation of other importa- 

 tions, which have given us a more intimate knowledge of them 

 than volumes of books, without such personal observation, could 

 have clone. 



