Speaking Generally 9 



North in improving other farm animals by thoroughbred 

 importations. 



Instances: in the same ship that landed in New Orleans 

 December, 1838, with thoroughbred horses for Thomas 

 Alderson of Nashville and Lucius J. Polk of Mt. Pleasant, 

 Thomas Flintoff, a race horse man of Williamson County, 

 brought over eight prize sheep; and Cassius, a Durham 

 bull, that was immediately sold to L. J. Polk of Mt. Pleas- 

 ant and James Jackson of Florence, Ala., for $5,000. 

 About the same time, at an auction sale of John H. Clop- 

 ton's stock, near Nashville, J. W. Clay, a race horse man, 

 Proprietor of Bellair, on the Lebanon road, and son-in- 

 law of John Harding, paid $700 for a Durham cow; and 

 H. P. Bostwick, of Williamson County, paid $626 for her 

 yearling calf. About this same time, also, Henry Clay 

 Jr., of Fayette County, Kentucky, sold a cow to some of 

 his neighbors for $2,000; Thomas H. Clay paid $700 for 

 a 2-year old Durham bull and William P. Curd of Fayette 

 County, Kentucky, paid $500 for a pair of Berkshire hogs. 



Out of the popular interest thus aroused in all sorts of 

 pure blooded stock grew agricultural shows and county 

 fairs known in Tennessee in 1836, if not before. It was 

 the spirit of the times, brought on by the thoroughbred 

 horse, that caused Mark R. Cockrill, a Davidson County 

 farmer and breeder of race horses, to capture premiums 

 for the best Merino wool at the London Fair in 1851. 



Of the more than 100 race tracks, in the United 

 States, each under the jurisdiction of its own Jockey 

 Club, at which races were known to a contributor to The 

 TurJ Register to have been run in 1839, it was sa id by 

 this contributor that New Jersey had 4 tracks, New York 

 i, Pennsylvania i, District of Columbia I, Maryland 

 3, Virginia 13, North Carolina 6, South Carolina 10, 

 Georgia 5, Alabama 10, Mississippi 8, Louisiana 8, 



