406 A HISTORY OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 



Col. William S. King. One of the most in- 

 terested spectators at the McMillan sale was 

 Col. William S. King of Minneapolis, Minn., 

 who was one of the first to introduce Short- 

 horns into the Northwest and whose lavish in- 

 vestments in show and breeding stock contrib- 

 uted so largely to the development of a taste 

 for Short-horn breeding in the Western States. 

 The controlling motive in the establishment of 

 his Lyndale Herd was the improvement of the 

 cattle stocks of the Northwest. Short-horns 

 were but little known in Minnesota even while 

 Brown, Pickrell, Duncan, McMillan, Spears and 

 their contemporaries were fighting their earlier 

 show-yard battles in Illinois. Col. King was 

 himself without special knowledge of them at 

 that time, and indeed began his work by an 

 unavailing effort to introduce Ayrshires among 

 the farmers of the Northwest. Reared in the 

 stock-growing and dairy region of Northern 

 Central New York his thoughts naturally re- 

 verted first to the herds of the Empire State 

 and he has given us an amusing account of 

 how his attention became first diverted from 

 the Ayrshires to the Short- horns and as to how 

 his first purchase was received upon arrival at 

 St. Paul in 1867. In the autumn of that year 

 he visited the J. 0. Sheldon herd at Geneva, 

 N. Y., and was captivated by it. One of the 

 Duchesses had just dropped a bull calf the 



