244 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



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CHAPTER XIII. 



PROGRESS OF SHORT-HORNS IN AMERICA. HAVE THEY IMPROVED 

 IN BLOOD, QUALITY, OR CONDITION, SINCE THEIR FIRST IMPOR- 

 TATIONS ? 



To give a short and decisive answer to the above pertinent ques- 

 tion, we say they evidently have improved here, as they also have 

 in England for many years past ; and although we may not speak of 

 English Short-horns exclusively by themselves, yet, as we have received 

 various importations almost annually, of some of their choicest ani- 

 mals for the past twenty years equally good as any which the breeders 

 retained at home, and many of the best of which have passed under 

 our own observation we shall speak of them in general, both in that 

 country and in this. 



We have already shown that late in the last century, and in the 

 earlier years of the present, the English Short-horns recorded by 

 name and having pedigrees of their lineage were few, and in the 

 hands of only a limited number of breeders who sedulously culti- 

 vated their better qualities to the highest development which their 

 perseverance and skill could command. They labored in their 

 praiseworthy vocation for more than forty years before they could 

 even establish a record of their pedigrees, and for more than forty 

 years longer before they could gain a public recognition of the im- 

 portance of such a record, although the cattle were thickly distrib- 

 uted in the counties of Northumberland, Durham, York, and Lincoln, 

 as a well-established race. Their reputation had also extended into 

 various adjoining, and even distant counties, both of England, Scot- 

 land, and possibly into Ireland, where many reputable animals had 

 been taken and bred with both skill and profit. 



It may be supposed that during that period of eighty years the 

 great majority of tenant farmers in the original Short-horn region 

 less active in new enterprises than men of more widely-varied pur- 

 suits paid some attention to improving the qualities of their herds, 

 when of the Short-horn race, but not so much attention as did the 

 more skillful and thoughtful men whose names we have from 



