CLOSING EVENTS OF THE CENTURY. 789 



time in America, topped the females at $400, 

 at which price she went to Messrs. Mitchel, 

 Danvers, 111., who also took the aging Princess 

 Alice at $300. The old Field Marshal cow's 

 roan heifer Alice of Forest Grove, sired at Lin- 

 wood by Galahad, was allowed to go to Texas 

 at $220. Sixty-nine head sold for the shocking 

 average of but $131.60, a fact which furnished 

 ample proof of the wretched state of the Short- 

 horn trade at that time; reflecting the wide- 

 spread commercial and industrial depression. 

 It is needless to say that those who had the 

 courage to buy profited largely by their invest- 

 ments at this sale. There is a moral to be 

 drawn from this and similar events recorded in 

 this volume. It is this : Cattle-breeding, like 

 all other avocations, has its ups and downs, its 

 bright periods of prosperity and its dark days 

 of adversity ; but those who are so situated 

 that they can take advantage of nominal prices 

 whenever they prevail never fail to reap a rich 

 reward, and usually within a very short space 

 of time. 



Woodburn dispersion. In 1891 Mr. A. J. 

 Alexander, who had succeeded to the ownership 

 and management of his brother's magnificent 

 estate at Woodburn, deemed it advisable to con- 

 clude the Short-horn breeding operations that 

 had been for some forty years carried on upon 

 the farm with such signal advantage to Ameri- 



