APPENDIX. 893 



those minor details of your business. Inappropriate, out- 

 landish or well-worn names may convey to the outsider 

 the impression that you are not taking that interest in 

 your herd that is necessary to success. Little straws indi- 

 cate the direction of the wind. The naming of your cattle 

 is not an unimportant matter. There is not enough care 

 taken in this regard and I urge you all to give the mattsr 

 more consideration. 



And now as to the name of the breed itself. On my 

 way to the late convention at Portland, Ore., I fell in 

 with a New England farmer who told me that he owned 

 about 75 head of "Durhams." In the course of our con- 

 versation he asked me if I thought the "Red Durhams" 

 were really any better than the "blue" ones. He spoke 

 of the Red Durhams as if he thought them a distinct type. 

 By "blue" I at once assumed that he meant the one dis- 

 tinctive color of the breed. In replying I made use of 

 the words "roan" and "Short-horn" and commented upon 

 "Durhams" as being a virtually obsolete word. He re- 

 plied, "Well, of course, we know what you mean when 

 you say Short-horn; but our farmers stick to the Dur- 

 hams." Under that sign the improved Teeswater breed 

 made its early conquests on those granite hills, and I 

 imagine the old-fashioned type of big-framed table-backed 

 oxen will continue to win prizes at the New England 

 county fairs and continue to serve the good farmers of 

 that section in the yoke for many years to come. Never- 

 theless, the name of the breed is Short-horn. Such is the 

 legend on both the English and American Herd Books, and 

 what indeed is in that name? 



For answer roll back the curtain of a century past and 

 call into being the myriad herds that have trod the pas- 

 tures of two hemispheres under that appellation! There 

 they are in all their beauty; clad in their coats of many 

 colors, gracing the beauteous landscapes of "merrie" Eng- 

 land, grazing the green pastures of sunny France, reveling 

 in the blue-grass and the stalk-fields of the United States, 

 fattening among the straw-stacks and turnip-fields of 

 Aberdeenshire, filling the feed-lots of Canada, ridding the 



