66 PROMINENT HEREFORD BREEDERS. 



purse of 100 guineas. This challenge, however, was never 

 accepted. 



Wm. Hewer and his son John were probably the greatest 

 of all Hereford breeders. They were of Gloucestershire and 

 had obtained their foundation stock of Tully, of Huntington, 

 and from the elder Tomkins. Wm. Hewer improved the 

 stock by judicious selection, but it remained for his son John 

 to effect the greatest improvement on the Hereford stock. 



John Hewer was born in 1787; received his early train- 

 ing under his father, and in 1817 was called to manage a 

 large farm for Mr. Browning, who had begun farming in 

 Shropshire, and had purchased most of the Herefords be- 

 longing to Wm. Hewer. In 1824 Mr. Browning became bank- 

 rupt, and his cattle were sold; most of them were purchased 

 by Mr. John Hewer, who started in business for himself. He 

 pursued a course of vigorous selection and was a great stick- 

 ler for scale with quality. Many of his bulls weighed from 

 2,800 to 3,360 pounds, and were in great demand. He adopted 

 and used extensively the plan so successfully followed by 

 leading Shorthorn breeders, of letting his bulls out, and had 

 as many as 55 let at one time, but sold very few save for 

 export. He inbred freely, bred for scale, wealth of flesh and 

 quality, and produced some very noted bulls; and owing to 

 the great number he kept, and their marked individual -excel- 

 lence and prepotency, his cattle have had the greatest influ- 

 ence on the Hereford breed of any known. John Hewer, in 

 fact, was to the Herefords what Bates, Booth and Cruick- 

 shank have been to the Shorthorns. 



Contemporary with Hewer were a number of noted 

 breeders, the more important of whom were T. A. Knight, 

 Thomas Jr., Edmund and Edward Jeffries, and Mr. Yoemans. 

 The foregoing men were the leading breeders of the early 

 half of the 19th Century. They brought the Hereford breed 

 to high estate in individual merit, but the spread of the 

 breed was seriously checked by a quarrel among Hereford 

 breeders as to color. As before stated, the earlier breeders 

 paid no heed to this, and bred the white-faced, mottle-faced 

 and gray (almost roan) Herefords indiscriminately. A fashion 

 had set in for the pure-bred with white faces, and the contest 

 was long and bitter among the leading breeders, but finally. 

 through the powerful influence of Mr. John Hewer, Mr. Yoe- 

 mans and Mr. Thos. Jeffries, Jr., resulted in the establish- 

 ment of the white-faced type we now know. 



