PREFACE. 



THIS book has cost me much labor. The material from 

 which it has been drawn was difficult to obtain much more 

 than those not conversant with the subject would imagine and 

 many years have elapsed in its gathering. Short-horn cattle 

 history, in a connected form, has never existed since the race 

 has been known, and it is only through the scraps and desultory 

 notes made from time to time by different breeders and occa- 

 sional writers within the past seventy years that we learn any- 

 thing with certainty, and then in such disconnected fragments 

 that the toil of dissecting, arranging, and putting them together 

 understandingly has been most perplexing and difficult. 



Still, the work, such as it is, has been accomplished ; and 

 that a volume of this character is needed by the Short-horn 

 breeders, of America, and other countries where the race exists, 

 must be evident to every intelligent breeder. Many of the 

 various writings relating to Short-horns, their breeding and pro- 

 gress, scattered through the agricultural publications of the day, 

 both in Great Britain and America are of decided value ; but 

 portions of them have been intermixed with such partisan feel- 

 ing, and sometimes so inaccurate in statement as to yield little 

 of correct information to those who wish to arrive at the real 

 truth of Short-horn history. The mass of cattle breeders have 

 not been of the class addicted to scholastic pursuits, although 

 they knew many facts, valuable and important. Many of these 



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