THEIR REVIVAL IN AMERICA. 193 



CHAPTER X. 



REVIVAL OF THE SHORT-HORNS IN AMERICA. 



THE year 1852 dawned upon a more cheerful prospect in agricul- 

 tural pursuits than that of the last ten or twelve years preceding it. 

 Meats had gradually increased in price, as a foreign demand to a con- 

 siderable extent had opened for our surplus provisions ; our farmers 

 had measurably recovered from their depressed condition, and a 

 spirit of improvement in their neat stock now gradually revived 

 among the cattle growers of the country, particularly in the States of 

 New York, Ohio and Kentucky. Those Short-horn breeders who 

 had tenaciously held on to and cherished the blood of their favorite 

 herds and taken in the aggregate, there were quite a number of 

 them gathered their choice things together with renewed care, and 

 with cheerful hope of better times in the future, set themselves about 

 their improvement both by accelerated increase and painstaking in 

 their breeding. Had not the Short-horn race, by their inherent qual- 

 ities of excellence, borne up against the neglect under which many 

 of them for years past had suffered, some of them in their depressed 

 appearance and careless breeding would scarcely be recognized as 

 high-bred cattle at all, although the aristocratic blood of many genera- 

 tions still coursed through their veins and remained intact as ever. 

 Yet by the still hopeful interest, and care of their breeders under 

 the exercise of a discriminating judgment, the neglected herds rap- 

 idly resumed their wonted comeliness of form and robustness of 

 condition, and showed their excellence as of old. 



About the year 1852 a demand for them gradually sprung up, and 

 on a deliberate survey of the situation a new impulse was directed to 

 further importations from abroad. Anticipating a movement of this 

 kind, in the year 1849 Mr. Ambrose Stevens, of Batavia, N. Y., went to 

 England and purchased the valuable bull 3d Duke of Cambridge, 1034 

 (5941), by Duke of Northumberland (1940), then eight years old, of 

 his breeder, Mr. Thomas Bates, of Kirkleavington. This bull was 

 of the Duchess, Princess, and Waterloo tribes combined. After his 

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