INVESTIGATION OF DISPUTED PEDIGREES. 415 



iorm that was complete and conclusive, showing that the mare 

 in question was bred by Garrett Duryea, of Bethel, Sullivan 

 County, New York, and was got by a horse known as Pintler's 

 Bolivar. Rynders had been a leader in New York politics so 

 long that he knew just how to manage things where the truth 

 must be suppressed. He was a liberal advertiser, the two sport- 

 ing papers were needy for patronage in that line, and their 

 columns were closed to any and all communications against his 

 side of the question. But all this failed to suppress the truth 

 and uphold a fraud, and I doubt whether there is a man living 

 to-day who does not believe that the fight was fairly and honestly 

 won. This contest taught me a very important lesson, and that 

 was, that if I expected to fight bogus pedigrees I must have a 

 channel of communication of my own. Hence Wallace's Monthly, 

 which, in its day, was not only able to expose bogus pedigrees, 

 but lead intelligent thought and experience on all breeding sub- 

 jects, till it fell into the hands of an unscrupulous neocracy, 

 where it soon died for want of brains. 



Having given a very brief illustration of the methods which 

 governed Mr. Backman in ascertaining and determining the 

 blood elements which entered into the foundation of his great 

 breeding establishment, and the care and promptness with which 

 errors were eliminated, it is now in order to take a glance at the 

 methods pursued at the great Woodburn Farm, founded by R. 

 A. Alexander in Kentucky. These were the two earliest estab- 

 lishments, of any prominence, for breeding the trotter, in the 

 whole country. The one was the northern center of the interest 

 and the other the southern, and they together may be considered 

 as representative of both sections. Mr. Alexander, I think, was 

 reared and educated in Scotland, and there inherited a large 

 estate. Upon coming into this inheritance he determined to 

 transfer his interests to Kentucky, where he bought up a cluster 

 of farms and shaped them for the purpose of building up a mam- 

 moth establishment for the breeding of all varieties of domestic 

 animals of the highest type and excellence. I think his fancy 

 ran more to Short Horn cattle than to any other line of breed- 

 ing, probably because he knew more about the value and merit of 

 the different tribes of that breed than he did of any other variety. 

 The founding of an establishment so immense, and for the grand 

 purpose of the breeding and improving the varieties of domestic 

 animals, was the agricultural sensation of the period, and every- 



