SECOND PERIOD OF ACTIVITY. 283 



had been content with recording certain of 

 their animals in the English Herd Book. 

 Others maintained, with more or less accu- 

 racy, their own private records, showing the 

 lineage of their stock. Another large class 

 preserved no detailed account of the breeding 

 of their cattle, or handled their records so loose- 

 ly as to render them of little value. 



It was indeed an appalling task that confronted 

 Mr. Allen at the outset of his undertaking. It 

 was even a more difficult work than had been 

 assumed by George Coates in Yorkshire some 

 thirty years previous. Coates could throw the 

 saddlebags upon his old white "nag" and jog 

 about among the breeders, within a day's jour- 

 ney, at his convenience. Moreover he had the 

 powerful influence of Jonas Whitaker at his 

 back. Mr. Allen had to collect the data of 

 half a century of breeding in the new world; 

 the stock being mainly in the possession of peo- 

 ple unaccustomed to the preservation of pedi- 

 gree records. The cattle \vere in the hands of 

 a great number of people in widely-separated 

 States; scattered in fact throughout an empire 

 extending from New England to the Central 

 West. 



Mr. Allen had some qualifications for the 

 work. He had been breeding Short-horns him- 

 self in a modest way, and enjoyed the personal 

 acquaintance of a number of Eastern import- 



