PREFACE. 



TO BE CAREFULLY READ. 



THIS reprint of bull pedigrees from Coates' English Short-horn Herd Book, supplies a 

 great want to American Short-horn cattle breeders who have not the full volumes of that 

 expensive work at command. There are not, probably, fifty full sets of that work in America, 

 and in these pages will be found all the information which those volumes contain relating 

 to the pedigrees of our American herds. The names and pedigrees of all the bulls recorded 

 in its first four volumes, 6699 in number, are herein printed, together with some thousands 

 of other bull pedigrees of the succeeding volumes, which relate to the genealogy of their 

 American descendants recorded in all the volumes of the American Herd Book. 



The names and pedigrees have been carefully compared with the originals, and it is be- 

 lieved that few or no errors of consequence will be found in them. 



In the pedigrees of the first four volumes, a great majority will be found which have no 

 relation whatever to American pedigrees, but, as they illustrate the material on which the 

 original Short-horn pedigrees of England were founded, they will be peculiarly instructive 

 to the American breeder. 



The science of Short-horn breeding is now so far advanced in our country, that it has 

 become an object, not only of curiosity, but of necessary information to a large number of 

 our breeders, to trace their cattle pedigrees to the fountain head of their production. This 

 work will be a perpetual guide in their future efforts, and may govern, in frequent case^, 

 the selection of bulls for succeeding crosses. 



It will be readily understood why a large majority of the bull pedigrees recorded in the 

 English Herd Book have no direct relation to the American Short-horns. Many of them died 

 young, before use ; others were castrated, leaving no produce ; many were sent, when young, 

 to countries other than America ; and numerous others were used only in Great Britain, and 

 did not become at all connected with our own Short-horns ; of course a reprint of these would 

 be entirely unnecessary for American use. 



In examining the pedigrees herein contained, it will be found that the very best blood, 

 and the choicest selections from it, have been transferred from Great Britain to America, and 

 not in that country or either of its colonies, can prouder or more aristocratic blood be found 

 than now courses in the veins of many of our American Short-horns. A deeper study of the 

 genealogy of our herds than many breeders have been able to obtain, can now be made by 

 those who have this volume at command, and those herds have assumed such value and import- 

 ance that a knowledge of their entire lineage is demanded by all who wish to attain the 

 highest degree of excellence in their animals. This, therefore, will give them all the infor- 

 mation needed in their investigations, and makes complete the American Short-horn Herd 

 Book, to which it is really an addenda, so that our pedigrees can be traced as far as the 

 English records of their ancestry extend. 



