THE BATES IMPROVEMENT. 145 



a herd which challenged the admiration of numerous Short-horn 

 breeders on both sides the Atlantic and that admiration has not 

 abated with the increasing generations of their progeny. In this 

 assertion we know we are trenching on delicate, if not debatable 

 ground. Yet the prices which they have brought for many years 

 past, and still bring, bear indisputable evidence of the fact, whether 

 those prices are based on sound judgment, or fancy only. We do 

 not assert that for general practical uses the Bates stock are really 

 better than very many animals of more miscellaneously, yet well-bred 

 herds, but in their deeply concentrated blood giving it the power of 

 transmission into others, they are much admired and widely sought. 



On Mr. Bates' death the animals of his most cherished blood were 

 quickly appropriated by a few who had long been partial to their 

 merits, and wielded purses to command their possession. ^200 to 

 ^"300 ($1,000 to $1,500) would then buy any Short-horn in England. 

 Three years afterwards it cost ;6oo to ^"1,000 ($3,000 to $5^000) as 

 we have seen, to buy the same animals, or their produce, in close 

 competition between Englishmen and Americans, and prices both in 

 England and America have since ranged even higher for both bulls 

 and cows of favorite strains of their blood. 



The above remarks are made with no invidious reflection upon 

 the valuable stock of other breeders, or their herds. There are many 

 herds, as well as individual animals, both in England and America, 

 of the highest excellence; but with the exception of the Booths, 

 there has been no herd of Short-horns so closely interbred as that of 

 Mr. Bates, and containing so strong and deep a concentration of 

 blood, and the bulls from which have stamped more strikingly their 

 several individualities upon stranger herds. Not that these cattle in 

 themselves shew such marked superiority over many others, but from 

 their long compacted genealogy and careful breeding, they impress 

 their own characteristics upon their progeny in a greater degree than 

 others which, through their divergent crosses, have not been so com- 

 pactly bred. Hefice their highly estimated value, as certified by the 

 auctioneer's hammer, as well as in private sales. Let the public, if 

 they will, call men fools, or enthusiasts, who pay those exhorbitant 

 prices, but' when we see veteran breeders, life-long in the pursuit, as 

 well as those of less experience, doing so, it may well be supposed 

 there is something in it beyond mere assumption, caprice or fancy. 

 Who in England ever produced such bulls with their in-and-in bred 

 crosses as, early in this century, did Charles Colling in Comet (155), 

 by Favorite ; thirty years later, as did Bates in Duke of Northumber- 

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