APPENDIX 



557 



COPY OF FOREGOING FAC-SIM1LE 

 LETTER. 



De Funiak Springs, Fla., April 14, 189!). 

 T. F. B. Sotham, Esq., Chillicothe, Mo. 

 Dear Tom: 



I rec. yours of Mar. 30. 

 I am reading up the record of my fight for 

 the Herefords, and have just met the following, 

 written in Feb., '82. 



The History of Mr. Sotham and his connec- 

 tion with the Herefords. Although he did not 

 receive an immediate and direct success, his 

 work had a great influence, and made the way 

 easier for us. I have found all along those 

 who were Hereford men from what they knew 

 of his cattle. 



I met a man of seventy years, who said of 

 the Herefords, they are the best cattle I ever 

 knew. When I asked, what do you know of 

 them, his reply was, I bred and owned them 

 forty years ago in Vermont. The cows were 

 the best I ever owned, and the young things 

 were always ready for the butcher. 



I have met his cattle on the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, carrying goods where horses could hardly 

 travel. I met a Mr. Bowen at the Centennial 

 from New York state, who introduced himself 

 and had a good word'for them. What do you 

 know of them, I asked. Says he, I bred them 

 years ago from the Sotham importation, and 

 when I asked him why he did not continue 

 them, he said the Shorthorn influence was too 

 strong for him ; and he was a man of more than 

 ordinary intelligence and enterprise. 



That Shorthorn influence has put its foot 

 upon many a movement that let alone would 

 have bettered the country. 



The Hon. John Merryman of Maryland 

 started his herd from the Sotham importation, 

 and forty-seven of this herd went to Messrs. A. 

 A. Crane & Son of Osco in this state, in Jan. 

 The Shorthorn men and editors have called 

 Mr. Sotham a failure. He was not a failure; 

 our work has been easier for what he did. He 

 made a record that time cannot deface or dim. 

 He made a case and placed it on record that 

 was perfect in its detail and make-up. The 

 work that he did I have used and felt. The 

 friends that he made have been my friends. I 

 have used the facts he gathered. When attacks 

 have been made upon me, I could not always 

 stop to say where my ammunition came from, 

 but I am now where I have reached a breathing 

 place. 



Gathering up this data of his, I am placing 

 it on record, and passing it to his credit, a fight 

 of forty years from the prime of life to old age. 



Starting with the best race of cattle and the 

 best specimens of that race, for it will be no- 

 ticed that in the record we are bringing up 

 none of his opponent's question the merit of 

 his cattle, they try to rob him by claiming the 

 merits as belonging to a Shorthorn cross. Start- 

 ing as I may say with the best breed and the 

 best specimens of the breed, with a friend in 

 the person of the Hon. Erastus Corning of 

 ample means; with those prospects and the 

 skill necessary to carry out the enterprise to 

 a large success, those Shorthorn men were en- 

 abled, by force of numbers and the control of 

 the press and the New York Agricultural So- 

 ciety, to destroy those prospects and retard this 

 Hereford movement for 40 years. 



But while they were able to do this, they 

 have never been able to break his spirit. He 

 has stood for forty years as defiant and aggres- 

 sive as though he had Erastus Corning and a 

 herd of Herefords behind him. He has stood 

 in their path as faithfully and fearlessly as the 

 angel stood in the path of Balaam. 



W r hile I was in the thick of the fight, I could 

 not stop to bind up his wounds; I could not 

 stop, as perhaps I ought, to notice his aid. 



He has perhaps had occasion to feel that I 

 neglected him, and that same fearlessness that 

 has kept his face towards his old enemies, led 

 him to strike at me occasionally. I should have 

 been glad that it were not so, but I have no 

 enmity. 



I at my first breathing place, gather up his 

 record and give it to his generation, and I will 

 place the Hereford flag in his hands and the 

 Hereford crown on his head. 



Well, Tom, that is what I wrote and pub- 

 lished in Feb., '82. It is a singular fact that 

 1 from 1839 and during this Albany contro- 

 versy took the Albany Cultivator, and kept 

 the files. Truly yours. T. L. MILLER. 



THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE APPEN- 

 DIX. 



In accordance with the announcement at the 

 introduction, in addition to the copious illus- 

 trations pertinent to the body of this work a 

 number of full-page reproductions of photo- 

 graphs from life of choice specimen Herefords 

 of different ages and both sexes are herewith 

 included. It has been thought best to confine 

 these specimen illustrations to photographs 

 from life rather than from drawings, as it is 

 believed that they will give more accurate rep- 

 resentations of Hereford anatomy, and thus 

 train the inexperienced eye to a knowledge of 



