PROSPERITY REGAINED 957 



The herd of W. T. McCray coming up from 

 Louisville, Ky., met the VanNatta cattle from its 

 home state at Springfield, with J. E. Thompson, an 

 Illinois breeder, supplying a few winners. Of all 

 the state fairs this season the breed was least numer- 

 ously represented at Illinois. On the succeeding 

 week the Harris cattle from South Dakota, the Mc- 

 Cray cattle from Indiana and the Curtice cattle from 

 Missouri met at the Missouri State Fair, while the 

 young cattle from the Kansas herd of R. H. Hazlett 

 were winning most of the prizes at the Oklahoma 

 State Fair in competition with the entries of Klaus 

 Bros., from the same state, and several local ex- 

 hibitors.* 



*Mr. Hazlett has not been in the limelight as much as some 

 of his contemporaries, but he has been honored with the presi- 

 dency of the Hereford association, is one of the active managers 

 of the Kansas City Royal Show, and is generally recognized as 

 one of the ablest men now identified with the development of 

 Hereford interests in the middle west. A statement, therefore, 

 covering some of his personal experiences will undoubtedly be of 

 much interest, and at our request he has prepared the following, 

 which we have pleasure in inserting at this point: 



"Really, my experience as a breeder has been so generally 

 uneventful that I hardly know how to give you any very good 

 idea of what I have done. I have never attempted much in the 

 way of showing cattle. I first knew about Herefords when T. L. 

 Miller and others of the early Hereford breeders were striving to 

 obtain recognition by the management of the Illinois State Fair, 

 Springfield, 111., being my home at that time. My interest at that 

 time, however, went no farther than just to feel that those men 

 were hardly securing fair treatment and to be pleased when they 

 obtained some recognition through the demonstrations at the fat 

 stock show. In 1885 I moved away from Illinois to El Dorado, 

 Kans., and had little experience and knew little of what was going 

 on in connection with fairs for some years. 



"I bought my first Herefords, an entire small herd, near this 

 citv in 1898. This herd had been kept on the farm where they 

 were when I bought them for a good many years and I had fre- 

 quently visited the place and admired the cattle. There were six- 

 teen in the little herd when I bought it two young bulls some 

 eight to nine months old, and fourteen females, less than half of 

 them being of breeding age, the others being yearlings and com- 

 ing yearlings. Wild Beau, a full brother to Wild Tom, that first 

 made Sunny Slope famous as a Hereford breeding establishment, 

 was the sire of the young animals in this little herd. Wild Beau 

 was by Beau Real and he by Anxiety 4th. One of these young 

 bulls I kept and used in my herd for several years to some ex- 

 tent, on all the older cows except his dam. As I did not want to 

 breed half sisters to this bull I secured a bull with a large per- 



