CLEARING SKIES 647 



market, along with a lot of well fitted home-bred 

 stock, at Sunny Slope in March, 1898. The event 

 aroused intense interest in American Hereford cattle 

 breeding circles. It had been many years since any 

 importations of consequence had been made. Prices 

 had not only been so low as to discourage enterprise 

 in that line, but the $100 fee for the registration of 

 imported cattle was still in force, and the owners of 

 large herds descended from the earlier importations 

 were not slow to deny the necessity for any further 

 recourse to the old-country stock. It was strenuously 

 insisted that there was little if any occasion for any 

 such extensive patronage of the English herds. It 

 was claimed that better cattle were being bred and 

 shown in the States than were being produced on the 

 other side of the Atlantic. The extraordinary ex- 

 cellence of the " white faces" being produced in the 

 herds of such pioneer breeders as Gudgell & Simp- 

 son, Clark and VanNatta and by the owners of valu- 

 able cattle bred from the Culbertson, Earl & Stuart 

 and later importations, as evidenced by the leading 

 shows of that time, certainly gave color to the con- 

 tention that America had really passed the mother- 

 land in the matter of level-quartered, finely finished 

 Herefords. 



Notwithstanding this natural opposition to the im- 

 portation and sale of cattle brought out with specu- 

 lative intent, there was now such a widespread wave 

 of enthusiasm in behalf of good Herefords, and so 

 insistent was the demand of the western range for 

 white-faced bulls, that on the 2nd and 3rd of March, 



