THE QUALITIES OF PEDIGREES. 249 



private interests and partisan feeling which existed among many of 

 the breeders, and partialities in favor of particular strains of blood, 

 and equal prejudices against others, perhaps hardly a single breeder 

 could be found who would say that the Herd Book was correct in all 

 the particulars of its pedigrees. There were fault-finders then, as 

 well as now, and some who would be content with nothing which did 

 not comport with their own ideas of positive correctness. Amid 

 such contrariety of opinion, therefore, the only conclusion could be 

 to accept the records as mainly correct, each contributor being satis- 

 fied in his own mind that his own pedigrees were quite as good, if 

 not better than the average of his neighbors. 



The fact may be also understood that the first Herd Book con- 

 tained only a small minority of the well-bred cattle which had existed 

 for the past fifty years ; neither did it embrace anything like the full 

 number of well-bred Short-horns alive at the time of its publication. 

 For instance : Charles Colling had but 59 of all the animals he ever 

 bred recorded in it, although in his thirty years of breeding he had 

 probably bred and sold some hundreds of thorough-breds, and left 

 breeding twelve years before the book was printed. Robert Colling, 

 who bred cattle down to two years of its publication had only 93 of 

 all his extensive herds recorded. The three Booths, Thomas, John 

 and Richard father and sons then in the full career of their 

 breeding, had but 52; Major Bower had 56; Mr. Coates had 42; 

 Mr. Compton had 19; Mr. Currier 20; Mr. Donkin 15; Mr. Earn- 

 shaw 18; Mr. Gibson 47; Mr. Hutchinson, of Stockton, 54; Sir 

 Henry Carr Ibbetson 28; the two Joblings 30; Mr. Mason 77; the 

 three Maynards 15; Col. Mellish 30; Mr. Ostler 18; Mr. Parker 20; 

 Mr. Parrington 15 ; Mr. Robertson 23 ; Major Rudd 35 ; Mr. Sey- 

 mour 18; Mr. Simpson 60; Mr. Smith 44; Mr. Spoors 25 ; Sir Henry 

 Vane Tempest 13 ; Mr. Chesterfield 27 ; Col. Trotter 38; Mr. Wailes 

 15; Mr. Wetherell 45; Mr. Whittaker 46; Mr. Wright 35; Miss 

 Wright 35 ; and they comprised the chief contributors of pedigrees, 

 and were all old breeders. The remainder of pedigrees which the 

 book contained were contributed by the smaller breeders, besides 

 very many animals known by name and tradition only, with no breed- 

 er's or owner's name appended to them. Such a record, with much 

 of it so loosely made up, would be utterly condemned at the present 

 day by some who suppose that a well-bred Short-horn should carry 

 its pedigree back for centuries ; but others who know that a geneal- 

 ogy among brute animals must begin at sometime " when the memory 

 of man runneth not to the contrary," will be content to accept the 



