FIEST IMPORTATIONS TO AMERICA. 177 



for a long series of years among the very best 

 Short-horns known in the United States. 



Notwithstanding the marked excellence of 

 the so-called "Seventeens" there sprang up, 

 after the era of herd books and "fashion" in 

 blood lines asserted powerful influence upon 

 the breed, a prejudice against them which prac- 

 tical men were unfortunately unable to wholly 

 overcome. Parties who were breeding from cat- 

 tle drawn from the later and fully-pedigreed 

 importations began casting aspersions upon 

 the " purity " of the blood of the Sanders stock 

 because the foundation dams had no extended 

 pedigrees. In regard to this much nonsense 

 has been written. For instance, the "cock- 

 and-bull" story of the late Ambrose Stevens, 

 as published in Vol. II of the American Short- 

 horn Herd Book and repeated in Allen's "His- 

 tory of the Short-horns" (page 166), fitting 

 Mrs. Motte out with a long pedigree running 

 back to Lady Maynard, alleged to have been sup- 

 plied by Thos. Bates. This had no basis what- 

 ever in fact. The simple truth is that the cat- 

 tle bought by the butcher, Mr. Etches, were 

 doubtless good ones individually, although not 

 bred by men who had preserved records of their 

 breeding or acquired reputations. The animals 

 clearly belonged to the same class .of market 

 stock from whence Thomas Booth drew the an- 

 cestral dams of a number of those families 



