LATER IMPROVEMENT IN THE SHORT-HORNS. 247 



purchased at prices of about $5,000 or more each, to come to 

 America, or go to Australia. 



In these enumerations we do not mention the fabulous sums much 

 higher than either of those we have mentioned which Mr. Bates is 

 said to have refused for his Duke of Northumberland, as he had 

 many times declared that no price from any other party would obtain 

 him. Three to even six thousand dollars each have been paid by 

 American breeders for several American-bred bulls, mainly, or par- 

 tially of the same blood as those above mentioned. 



Still, pedigree has not altogether made those prices. The animals 

 so sold have possessed the highest excellence of quality, superadded. 

 The excellence endorsed the pedigree, and the pedigree endorsed the excel- 

 lence. Such mutualities of character make up the maximum of worth 

 in all blood animals whatever, where the highest points of perfection 

 are sought, or found. Another item should be understood when 

 naming the prices of such animals : there is a FASHION in their blood. 

 No matter whether the fashion give such real increased value or not. 

 When men take a fancy to a thing, be it Short-horn, Horse, or any- 

 thing else, if their purses can afford it, they are quite apt to indulge 

 in the luxury of its possession. We could name animals, were we so 

 disposed, which thirty years ago one would pass, without notice, 

 only that they were Short-horns, yet descended from imported ani- 

 mals, with good pedigrees, so run down by neglect as to look not 

 worth a hundred dollars each. But taken in hand by good breeders, 

 and crossing first-class bulls on them and their produce, in two or 

 three generations they were raised to rank in show competitions with 

 some of the costliest of recent importations. The purchasers of 

 those neglected and inferior animals saw in their pedigrees that good 

 blood was there, and believing in the integrity of good pedigree to rest 

 upon, and that proper care and keep would restore the excellence that 

 ought to be in the creature, they applied the means, and succeeded. 



The fact that our American, as well as the current English herds, 

 have been improved within the last forty or fifty years, to a higher 

 standard of average excellence than they ever before approached, 

 has been questioned by those who say the Short-horns, as a race, are 

 no better than they were in the days of the Collings or Maynard, 

 the elder Booth or Mason. That the old breeders had some remark- 

 ably good animals in their herds there can be no doubt ; but all the 

 testimony we have found has shown a continuous improvement from 

 their days down to the present ; and in the history we have of their 

 herds from other breeders of the time when the points of their 



