230 AT THE SIGN OF THE STOCK YARD INN 



distinction in any calling to which he might have 

 devoted his outstanding talents. 



Up to the time Mr. DUNHAM became interested 

 in this business there had been only sporadic im- 

 portations of stallions of heavy draft from various 

 parts of northern France, and nobody in the west 

 had given any special consideration to the matter 

 of locating the particular district from which the 

 material best fitted for our western uses might be 

 most satisfactorily obtained. Many of the pioneer 

 stallions had been picked up near Rouen or in other 

 communities adjacent to the English Channel by early 

 American live-stock importers, who had finished buy- 

 ing cattle or sheep in Great Britain and ran across 

 to the French coast to see what might be observed, 

 agriculturally speaking, without making any special 

 journeys of exploration into the interior. There was 

 then, and is yet, in the north of France a good big 

 horse known as the Boulonnais, and undoubtedly 

 some of the original French horses brought to 

 America and indeed also others brought over after 

 the era of stud books set in were of that race; 

 but as buyers extended their purchases southward 

 through the territory which once constituted the 

 province of Normandy, they found good colts being 

 developed by farmers and dealers that had been 



