APPENDIX. 881 



rell, Duncan and Spears fairly set the Western prairies on 

 fire for Short-horns. Capt. James N. Brown, the elder 

 Leonard, Gen. Meredith, Thos. Wilhoit, Timothy .Day, John 

 G. Cowan, Col. William S. King, John Wentworth, John 

 D. Gillett and a host of other able and enterprising men 

 brought the Short-horn home at last to the hearts of the 



Western people. 



* * * 



When Rip Van Winkle wandered back to his native 

 haunts on the Hudson after his fabled sleep of twenty 

 years on the mountain not a single soul in the peaceful 

 village of Falling Water gave him greeting. "Did ycu 

 never hear of Rip Van Winkle?" the poor old vagrant 

 asks in vain. None had any recollection of such an ind - 

 vidual. Philosophizing then upon the fleeting character of 

 mundane reputation he sounds the very depths of human 

 pathos "Are we indeed so soon forgotten when we're 

 gone? If my tog Schneider vas here, vhy he would know 

 me." But "Schneider" too is no longer even a memory in 

 the streets. 



My friends, how easy it is to forget, even in the prac- 

 tical business of breeding Short-horn cattle! How little 

 we know and how little most of us care about the men 

 who carried forward to sale-ring and show-yard triumphs 

 the colors of the "Red, White and Roan" even so recently 

 as twenty years ago! What little regard we seem to have 

 for the memories of those who bequeathed to the present 

 generation of men the breed of which we are all so proud, 

 and with what supreme indifference many of us ignore their 

 wisest teachings! We live in a busy - age. We are so 

 absorbed in working out the problems of to-day that we 

 have little thought for the yesterdays. We seem to believe 

 that no one else ever had just such questions to solve as 

 those by which we ourselves are confronted, and that it 

 is therefore idle to appeal to the past for direction in the 

 present. But it is not so. A great Virginian once said 

 upon a memorable occasion: "There is but one light by 

 which my feet are guided and that is by the lamp of ex- 

 perience." The men who have made the Short-horn what 



