264 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



sources of the new state. Hearing that his friend and 

 fellow-citizen, Col. Lewis Sanders,* a large land- 

 owner in Fayette and Gallatin counties, had placed 

 an order in Liverpool for a shipment of Shorthorns 

 and Longhorns with a view towards improving the 

 old Patton cattle, Mr. Clay decided to give the breed 

 that was then attracting so much attention at the 

 Smithfield Fat Stock Show in London a trial in the 

 bluegrass. There is no record extant as to where 

 the specimens were procured, but the forwarding 

 of a cow, a young bull and a heifer of the Hereford 

 breed by the ship Mohawk, which brought out the 

 famous Shorthorn importation of 1817 from Liver- 

 pool to Baltimore, is a matter of recorded history. 

 The comparatively small sum of 105 is said to have 

 been paid for the lot in England. 



This importation of Shorthorns, Longhorns and 

 Herefords was destined to have a far-reaching and 

 most beneficent effect upon the agriculture of the 

 middle west. There were no herd books either in 

 Great Britain or America in 1817. While there has 

 never been any question as to the fact that the ani- 



*Col. Sanders was a close student of agricultural conditions and a 

 regular reader of English publications dealing with farm topics. 

 Through these he had learned of the great prices paid by tenant 

 farmers for Shorthorns at the Chas. Colling sale. Commenting on 

 these he said : 



"Countess, out of Lady, four years old, brought four hundred 

 guineas ($2,000). Comet, six years old, brought one thousand guineas 

 ($5,000). He was bought by four farmers. It seemed to me that if 

 four farmers were willing to pay $5,000 for a bull, there was a value 

 in that breed that we were unapprised of, and that I should endeavor 

 to procure it. I made up an order for six bulls and six cows. My 

 views were then more inclined for a good milking than for a good 

 beef breed. The weight of the authorities given by the writers on the 

 subject of cattle at the close of the last and the commencement of 

 the present century was in favor of the Holderness breed as the best 

 for milking, and the Teeswater and Durham as having the hand- 

 somest and most perfect forms. I settled on these breeds." 



