80 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE ' 



Mr. Duckham, who afterwards became an influential 

 member of the House of Commons and rendered dis- 

 tinguished service to the farming interests of his 

 country, brought intelligence and enterprise to the 

 rehabilitation of the herd book, and soon placed it 

 upon a -substantial footing. He carried it from 1857 to 

 1878, at which date it was taken over by a herd book 

 society of which Mr. J. H. Arkwright was the first 

 President, the Earl of Coventry, Vice-President, and 

 Mr. S. W. Urwick, Secretary. 



Practical Farmers in Control. For many years 

 following the establishment of the herd book noth- 

 ing of a reactionary character intervened to retard 

 the steady progress of the Herefords toward their 

 highest development as quick-feeding, early-matur- 

 ing, thick-fleshed cattle of a robust type. These were 

 quiet uneventful years of unconscious but neverthe- 

 less efficient preparation along rational lines for 

 the great days so near at hand, contrasting sharp- 

 ly for the most part with the feverish activity and 

 wild orgy of pedigree speculation which during the 

 latter half of this same period attended the trade in 

 Shorthorns. While the enthusiastic adherents of 

 the great rival breed were working themselves up 

 to the frenzy that culminated in that unparalleled 

 international episode at New York Mills, where one 

 cow of the Duchess family was bid off for $40,600 

 and 109 head of Bates Shorthorns averaged $3,504, 

 Herefordshire was still pursuing the even tenor of 

 its way all untouched, as yet, by the blighting breath 

 of any "boom." 



