Vol. XVI., Second Series. ROCHESTER, N. Y., SEPTEMBER, 1855. 



PRINCIPLES OF IMPROVING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



CHAPTER III. 

 COLLATEKAL FACTS CONSIDERED. 



In the matter of improving domestic animals, 

 there are several collateral facts not unworthy of 

 consideration. 



1. The high prices now paid, and which have been 

 for fifty year.s fur really superior animals for propa- 

 gating their like and their race. 



In illustration of the value of Improved Stock, 

 attention is invited to a few facts copied from Eng- 

 lish and American works of acknowledged authority 

 on the suliject. Thomas Bates, Esq., of Kirkleav- 

 ington, was one of the most successful breeders and 

 improvers of neat cattle tliat England has ever pro- 

 duced, lie commenced his operations in 1804 by 

 purchasing at a high figure a cow of his famous 

 Dutchess stock of Mr. Charles Colling. After six 

 years' experience, so pleased was he with the results 

 obtained by this Dutchess cow, that at Mr. Colling's 

 public sale in 1810, he determined to have at any 

 price a heifer, then two years old, called Dutchess, 

 and grand daughter of the cow he first purchased. 

 Mr. Bates' instructions to the auctioneer were, that 

 whatever sum any one might offer for Dutchess, he 

 was authorized to make a bid for him of fi\e guineas 

 more; and ultimately, he obtained the prize for the 

 sum of one hundred and eighty-three guineas. This 

 investment of nearly a thousand dollars in a two year 

 old heifer, made forty-four years ago, was one of the 

 most profitable ever known in any country in the 

 cattle line. How much money Mr. Bates obtained 

 from his sales of the blood of this Dutchess family 

 before his death, in 1849, we have no means of know- 

 ing; but the reputation of his stock, of which this 

 family was most esteemed, may be inferred from the 

 fact that at a public sale after his death five thou- 

 sand persons were present to compete for the prizes 



and witness the deep interest of the occasion. The 

 Farmers' Magazine, for July 18.50, speaking of this 

 sale, says : At the lowest estimate, there could not 

 be less than five thousand persons, including nearly 

 every breeder of short- horned cattle in the United 

 Kingdom, as also breeders from the continent of 

 Europe, and from the United States of America. 



" It may with confidence be maintained that on no 

 similar occasion has so great an interest been excited 

 amongst the breeders of this variety of the ox, so 

 justly the pride of our country, as on that referred to 

 above; and well indeed did the herd deserve the far- 

 extended fame which attracted such a mighty gath- 

 ering on the occasion of its dispersion to be the 

 nuclei of new, or to enrich collections already in be- 

 ing, in our sea-girt isles, in Europe, and in the great 

 western quarter of our planet beyond the Atlantic." 



There were sixty-eight animals in this herd, which 

 consisted of six families, namely: the Dutchess, the 

 Oxford, the Waterloo, the Cambridge, the Rose, the 

 Wild Eyes, and the Foggathorpe; — which are enu- 

 merated in succession according to the prices that 

 each realized at the sale. At the. show of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society at Oxford, in 1839, Mr. Bates 

 had the unparalleled triumph— in England— as a breed- 

 er of Short^Horns, to win four of the principal prizes 

 with the only four animals exhibited by him ; and 

 he was offered, but refused, four hundred guineas 

 each for his premium cows and heifers. 



Thirty pure Short-Ilorned cattle belonging to ' the 

 Clark County Importing Company were recently sold 

 in Ohio at the following rates : A bull two years old 

 brought $4,000; one eighteen months old, .'fii2,.50O; 

 another, §1,900; and others varying down to $300 

 eacA. One cow sold at $1,425; another at $1,300; 

 another at $1,000; so down to $200 each, 



Grant that such prices are extravagant, and that 

 no general rule can be deduced from extrenle cases; 



