430 A HISTORY OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 



tee that issued the call for this important 

 meeting having been the late Hon. Claude 

 Matthews of Indiana. This great mass meet- 

 ing grew out of a desire on the part of those 

 who were the recognized leaders in the trade 

 at this date to have a higher standard of regis- 

 try established for the herd book, which was at 

 that time the private property of Mr. Lewis F. 

 Allen. Those who had been paying long prices 

 for stock of comparatively recent importation, 

 or immediate descendants thereof, sought to 

 cast discredit upon cattle bred from many of 

 the earlier importations, and it was argued 

 that inasmuch as some of the foundation stock 

 in the herd book had no pedigree, and as others 

 registered in the early days boasted pedigrees 

 known to be of questionable character, it was 

 necessary to practically treat the descendants 

 of such cattle as "grades." Indeed the ques- 

 tion of demanding a more rigid standard of ad- 

 mission to the herd book was the prime factor 

 in the calling of this convention. George W. 

 Rust, through the Live-Stock Journal, had pub- 

 lished scathing denunciations of what he char- 

 acterized as the inexcusable laxity of the Allen 

 rules, and the fact that the "purists" had al- 

 ready gone so far as to establish in Kentucky 

 (under the powerful patronage of Mr. A. J. Al- 

 exander and under the immediate direction of 

 Maj. Humphrey Evans) a rival pedigree regis- 



