SOME ROUSING DEMONSTRATIONS 619 



temporarily destroyed, and the recovery from the. 

 shock was a long and tedious process. Owners of 

 pedigree stock did not escape the general gloom. 

 Values fell rapidly. High-class registered animals 

 sold in many cases at their mere value for slaugh- 

 ter at the yards a state of affairs which put some 

 people out of business, but which at the same time 

 put others in at a bargain-counter basis. Those 

 who had a little money and plenty of nerve took ad- 

 vantage of such a situation to stock up. What was 

 one man's misfortune was another's opportunity. 



It came to pass, therefore, that the great Chicago 

 show marked the zenith of achievement in Here- 

 ford cattle breeding circles during the period of 

 their first great enjoyment of popularity in the west. 

 With this description of that event we enter the 

 shadows of an era of profound depression in all 

 branches of pedigree cattle breeding in the United 

 States a period which brought many enforced 

 changes in the personnel of those engaged in the in- 

 dustry, but an era during which the foundation for 

 a more enduring prosperity was laboriously but 

 successfully laid. 



A Desperate Depression. Ten years had now 

 elapsed since the great importing movement had 

 been at its flood. The reaction from the boom had 

 set in around 1885. Although at first a slow or 

 creeping decline, it had been expensive to some of 

 those who had allowed their enthusiasm or their cu- 

 pidity to run away with good judgment. Prices had 

 fallen steadily, beginning with that date except in 



