236 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



In many of the names and pedigrees mutual questions arose among 

 the men who established the book, as to their correctness. Some 

 averred that possible crosses of the Scotch Kyloe or West Highland 

 blood, or that of other breeds had, some generations back, occurred 

 in them. The Dutch, or Holland blood introduction, of which we 

 have previously spoken, (if it had ever occurred, but which it appears 

 was then mostly or altogether ignored,) was not a source of conten- 

 tion. Of Charles Colling's Grandson of Bolingbroke cross from the 

 Galloway cow, the whole story was then known, and what little there 

 was left of its introduction acquiesced in by the main body of the 

 breeders, as were the pedigrees of all others which could be traced 

 into what were considered good Short-horn herds, be their date either 

 ancient or modern. Yet, much party spirit existed among the Eng- 

 lish breeders, (as now, both in Britain and America,) and sharp contro- 

 versies took place in relation to their various pedigrees ; but all 

 disputes were finally reconciled into the admission of the pedigrees 

 recorded in the first, and subsequently into the succeeding volumes 

 of the English Herd Book, so that with few exceptions, from that 

 time to this, they have existed as authority for the lineage of their 

 race. True, individual questions may arise among breeders, in trac- 

 ing pedigrees to a remote source, as to the entire purity of their Short- 

 horn descent ; still, the Herd Book record must ultimately decide the 

 extent of confidence in blood to which the animal -in dispute is enti- 

 tled, and no individual opinion or decision can, absolutely, otherwise 

 determine it. 



Another point in the English Herd Book may here be stated. 

 Four crosses of pedigree bulls running back to what, in England, is 

 considered a Short-horn cow, with but fifteen-sixteenths of recorded 

 pedigree blood, entitles the animal having that number to a place in 

 its pages. In this age of intelligence where five or six crosses at 

 least in a well-bred English pedigree can easily be obtained, the 

 showing of but three or four gives wide latitude for conjecture and 

 guess-work. The Booths, from grandfather in 1777, to grandsons in 

 1871, in England, have ever maintained that four crosses of well-bred 

 Herd Book bulls running back to true Short-horn dams (which can 

 readily be found there, as large numbers of such exist which have 

 not been recorded in the Herd Books to this date) are sufficient to 

 establish thorough breeding. Hardly a single animal of their herds, 

 since they first obtained their original bulls from the Collings, runs 

 back into a cow having an ancient Herd Book pedigree, although they 

 have bred many of the best animals the race has produced, and yet 



