HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



147 



details of the Hereford-Shorthorn controversy 

 as waged in the agricultural papers and at the 

 different shows and fairs from 1834 to 1841; 

 the New York Agricultural Society being 

 founded for the special purpose of promoting 

 the Shorthorn interest. 



We give in the chapter on Fairs and Shows 

 a full account of the formation of the New 

 York State Fair, as a matter of reference. 



It will be seen that the Shorthorn breeders^ 

 used every means in their power to defeat Mr. 

 Sotham. We will follow that controversy from 

 1841, in which year the New York State Society 

 organized their first show. It will be shown that 

 that society was under the control of the same 

 parties that met Mr. S. and his Herefords in 

 1840, with the correspondence we have given. 



The writers of Tthat day speak of the Sotham 

 importation of Herefords in the highest terms. 

 A. B. Allen says of them : "that they gave him 

 a different opinion of the breed from what he 

 had before." 



The committee of judges at the first fair held 

 by the New York State Agricultural Society 

 recommended a special premium to the Here- 

 ford cow "Matchless" (ff 74F) and further 

 spoke of the Herefords belonging to Messrs. 

 Corning and Sotham as entitled to .a class, and 

 recommended that a class should be made and 

 special premiums should be awarded them, 

 which, so far as we are enabled to find, was not 

 done. 



Mr. T. C. Peters, writing from London Jan- 

 uary 6th, 1842, says: "One of the best Here- 

 ford bulls I have seen, indeed one of the best 

 I ever saw of any breed, is going out to Albany 

 by the packet ship Hendrick Hudson." Major 

 was purchased by Mr. Sotham in person. 



We have in our review of the Hereford-Short- 

 horn interest from 1834 to 1841, brought Mr. 

 Sotham's connection with that controversy fully 

 before our readers. We have shown that he 

 brought in support of the Hereford claims an 

 array of testimony that was a complete estab- 

 lishment of his claims; that it was done in a 

 manner creditable to him as a man and a 

 breeder. We have shown that his opponents 

 admitted that his stock was excellent, of the 

 best quality; that it was better than the history 

 of Youatt would warrant them in expecting to 

 see, and they claimed it must have a cross of 

 Shorthorn to give character. Other and disin- 

 terested parties came to Mr. Sotham's aid to 

 bear testimony to the merits of the Herefords, 

 and their testimony was not only for the time 

 then under controversy, but covered from a 

 quarter to a half century previous, and the only 

 testimony that the Shorthorn men who opposed 



Mr. Sotham brought forward in favor of the 

 Shorthorns and in opposition to Herefords was 

 Youatt's History of British Cattle. This his- 

 tory, we have shown by Youatt himself, so far 

 as the Shorthorn breed was concerned, was writ- 

 ten by Rev. Henry Berry, a Shorthorn breeder. 

 We have shown from Youatt's history of the 

 Herefordshire cattle that extensive experiments 

 had been made by the Duke of Bedford in the 

 feeding and gracing of Shorthorns and Here- 

 fords that had resulted in displacing the Short- 



" WHITE HALL," NEAR LEXINGTON, KY. 

 (Residence of Cassius M. Clay.) 



horns and establishing the Herefords on that 

 estate, and we quote Youatt as saying that the 

 reason why the date for these experiments was 

 not given was because they were not satisfactory 

 to the patrons of the Shorthorns. We have 

 shown that Youatt, in the history of several of 

 the local breeds, credits the Herefords as giving 

 character to those breeds in improving the feed- 

 ing, grazing and dairy qualities, that, had they 

 been given in the history, would have placed the 

 Herefords in the first position at the time he 

 wrote. 



We state distinctly and confidently that Mr. 

 Sotham produced a class of cattle in 1840 that 

 finally established the claims he made for su- 

 periority, that he brought forward testimony, 

 clear and convincing, that these qualities had 

 been in the breed for half a century, and that 

 the success of the Herefords at that time was 

 defeated by a combination of Bates' Shorthorn 

 breeders, and we have shown that the New York 

 State Fair was organized by these men in 1841 

 at Syracuse. At this fair Mr. Rust showed a 

 fat ox with a mottled face (fl 75), which took 

 the first premium, for which the Shorthorn men 

 claimed the credit. Mr. Sanford, one of the 

 leading writers of that day, and a breeder of 

 large experience, met this claim by showing that 



