IV PREFACE. 



facts have been given to the world ; but more of them have 

 perished with their possessors who died and left no sign of 

 their labors, other than the noble animals whose posterity have 

 survived them. 



The English Herd Books, from the year 1822, have recorded 

 pedigrees of the Short-horns existing nearly a century back, 

 and as they have since increased and multiplied, down to the 

 present time ; but they have given us pedigrees only. Had 

 they been accompanied with historical matter relating to their 

 breeders, and the distinguished animals of their times, they 

 would have added much of both interest and instruction. 

 Some such notes have been written by accurate observers, 

 and preserved, from which we have gleaned valuable informa- 

 tion ; but the information derived from them is less full and 

 complete than could be wished. Inference and guess-work 

 have been measurably resorted to by some writers in past days 

 to give color to various facts and theories of their own some 

 of them right, and some erroneous. In the examination of 

 authorities leading to the present work many contradictory 

 statements have been canvassed, and an effort has been made 

 to separate the probable from the improbable ; yet it is not 

 denied that errors may be found in these pages, so difficult has 

 it been to detect and separate fact from opinion, truth from 

 imagination. 



It may be asked : Why, with such contrarieties of historical 

 fact and opinion, strive to write Short-horn history at all ? The 

 plain answer is : The Short-horns have a history, and a most 

 interesting one. A hundred years ago they were comparatively 

 an obscure race of cattle, even in the land of their nativity. 

 For several centuries they had been considered of little value 

 over other common neat cattle, until sagacious men discovered 



