CLEARING SKIES 677 



breeding grounds of the southwest, big men in Colo- 

 rado, big men in Montana and Wyoming, big men 

 in the Dakotas, big men in Kansas and Nebraska, 

 big men in the cornbelt were banded together in 

 the American Hereford Cattle Breeders ' Associa- 

 tion in proud possession of a captured market. They 

 felt their power and proceeded to use it in effective 

 fashion in promoting the general good. 



Inception of the American Royal. The Here- 

 ford association working through efficient com- 

 mittees held a never-to-be-forgotten show at Kansas 

 City, in which 541 highly fitted cattle participated, 

 and nearly 300 head were sold at auction at an av- 

 erage of $317. At this sale John Sparks, after- 

 wards Governor of Nevada, paid $2,500 for the 

 beautiful Armour Bose. Col. Slaughter paid $1,950, 

 after a battle with Mr. Funkhouser, for the young 

 VanNatta-bred bull calf Aaron, and B. C. Rhome 

 of Texas took Beau Donald 2d at $1,200.* A few 

 days later Mr. Armour bought Aaron from Col. 

 Slaughter at $2,000 plus the choice of any bull calf 

 in his own herd. 



*At this sale an episode unique in the annals of such events 

 occurred when the bull calf Bonnie Prince, the property of Mrs. 

 Kate Wilder Cross, widow of Charles S. Cross, was offered. Mrs. 

 Cross had in so many ways endeared herself to the Hereford 

 cattle breeding fraternity that there was a hearty response to 

 Col. Woods' felicitous appeal in her behalf on the introduction of 

 the calf into the ring-. He was quickly run up to $900, at which 

 point the widow of the late Charles N. Whitman announced that 

 she would individually add $200 to the last bid for the calf no 

 matter what it might be. This generous offer was accompanied 

 by a shower of silver dollars tossed onto the tanbark under the 

 leadership of Col. Slaughter, with the compliments of everybody, 

 by way of expressing appreciation of what Mrs. Cross had done 

 for Herefords. Mr. Marshall Field's representative took the calf 

 at $910, and when to this was added the free-will offering of the 

 company it was found that something- over $1,200 had been 

 realized. Mrs. Cross subsequently established a herd on her own 

 account which she successfully conducted for some years. 



