263 AT THE SIGN OF THE STOCK YARD INN 



When the American Indians first saw a white man 

 their wonder must have been somewhat similar to 

 my own at seeing my first beast of a highly improved 

 character belonging to the bovine species. Nothing 

 like this had ever before walked on earth in my 

 judgment. The bull was as great a creation of his 

 kind as was Victor Hugo, but he did not belong to 

 us much to my disappointment and I went back 

 to our own cowyard to milk my quota of the native 

 ''fill-pails" assembled every evening, wondering how 

 such beautiful animals as this proud young Short- 

 horn ever happened. I think now that this was 

 clearly the beginning of an admiration for fine cattle 

 that in after years led me into a lot of hard work, 

 in fact, into a vocation. 



Having now started his community squarely 

 upon the road to draft horse and cattle improve- 

 ment, and having through the "Western Stock 

 Journal" called the entire west to arms in the cause 

 of better breeding, my father went after the lanky, 

 long-snouted swine of that period. This was in the 

 days when DAVID M. MAGIE was building so wisely 

 at Oxford, O., the foundations of the Poland- 

 China breed. A. G. MOORE, his great antagonist of 

 Canton, 111., was also producing black-and-white 

 spotted hogs that were having a wide vogue among 



