JUDGING LIVE STOCK. 51 



ceeded far better than any other breeder who was aiming at 

 the same end. 



Thos. Bates, contemporary practically with the elder 

 Booth, was a man of unusual ability, though of somewhat 

 peculiar characteristics. He, too, had carefully studied the 

 work of Bakewell and Charles and Robert Colling. He was 

 particularly interested in cattle breeding, and believed that 

 the policy of selecting and inbreeding, choosing only the best 

 to breed to the best, was the right. He resorted to the Coll- 

 ing herds for both males and females, but bred for both beef 

 and milk, and achieved notable success in both lines. He 

 kept a careful record of all of his cows, knew exactly how 

 much butter they were producing, and seems to have been 

 the first breeder who made any systematic efforts in this line. 

 He was a careful student of pedigrees, and, in fact, was in- 

 clined to lay almost too much stress upon this matter. He 

 displayed great foresight in his early purchases, and laid 

 special emphasis upon securing both beef and dairy qualities 

 in the cows he purchased. He thought very highly of the 

 blood of the great bull, Hubback, and tried in every way to 

 secure this blood. The reason he thought so highly of this 

 was because cows of this strain were especially good milkers. 

 He finally succeeded in securing this blood through a cow 

 known as Young Duchess. She was rather inferior as an 

 individual, but he trusted to the blood which he knew she 

 carried. She proved to be a very successful cow in his 

 hands, and gave rise to a family known as the Duchess 

 family. He prized this very highly and did a great deal of 

 inbreeding with animals of this blood. In fact, after a few 

 years declined to go to any outside herd for animals to mate 

 with them. This resulted in very close inbreeding, 

 and it proved very detrimental to his herd, in that while the 

 individual merit of the animals was not materially injured, 

 sterility resulted, and the rate of increase in his herd was 

 very low. Of the animals he bred the Duchess strains were 

 beyond all doubt the most noted, and, by his energetic meth- 

 ods of advertising, he made his strains of blood known, not 

 only in Great Britain, but also in America, and a number of 

 importations were made. The craze for cattle of Bates' 

 breeding increased, and finally culminated in 1873 at a sale 

 in New York state, when two cows of the Duchess (Durham) 

 strain were sold for $35,000.00 and $40,600.00, respectively. 



