252 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



the last forty or fifty years, with little or no pedigree at all attached 

 to them. 



The above explanations have appeared to be necessary in order to 

 understand the exact condition of the English Herd Book, and the 

 principles on which it was founded. 



THE PEDIGREES OF THE AMERICAN HERD BOOK. 



Assuming the necessity of a Herd Book on this side the Atlantic, 

 there could be no other plan so well adopted for its compilation as 

 that of the English. To the records of the latter the Americans 

 must resort for the lineage of all their pedigrees tracing to animals 

 which found a place in it. In addition to that, Short-horns imported 

 from England to America, together with their descendants, whether 

 recorded in the English volumes or not, with equal evidences of good 

 breeding as very many others which were recorded in their pages, had 

 equally good title to enter the American books, particularly when 

 many of their contemporaries had already found a record there. 



As has been observed, the year 1844 closed the labors of the 

 Coateses with the fifth volume of the English work, and the several 

 books down to that time contained many pedigrees of American 

 cattle. In the year 1846 the first small volume of the American, 

 and the sixth volume of the English, under Mr. Stratford, were simul- 

 taneously published, but neither of them, we believe, known to the 

 compiler of the other, at the time. Of course the two books, or 

 their editors, had no relations with each other. The American was 

 an independent work altogether. Its sole object was to establish 

 a record for American-bred animals, without interference with either 

 the past or the future English records, yet upon the same basis of 

 admission. 



Questions had arisen among the American breeders as to what 

 bloods, tribes, or pedigrees ought to be admitted into an American 

 book in the event of one being published, for even in the early days 

 of our Short-horn breeding some partisan feeling had arisen as to 

 what pedigrees were or what were not entitled to a record as well- 

 bred Short-horns. About the year 1840, or soon afterwards, as we 

 have learned, the principal Kentucky breeders came to a resolu- 

 tion to get up an American Herd Book, and Capt. Benjamin Warfield, 

 of Fayette, now deceased, together with Dr. Samuel D. Martin, of 

 Clark, and Mr. Robert W. Scott, of Franklin counties the two last 

 named gentlemen still living were appointed a committee to receive 



