THE QUALITIES OF PEDIGREES. 253 



pedigrees, examine and decide upon their merits and compile the 

 records. Many pedigrees were sent to them ; they had several meet- 

 ings on the subject, but after much consideration the whole matter 

 was indefinitely postponed, and nothing came of it. Nor was it 

 likely that any other committee would arrive at any definite conclu- 

 sions, particularly when conflicting opinions, and possibly interests in 

 the way of blood and pedigrees would interfere. Thus the way was 

 left open to individual enterprise, and insignificant as its first effort 

 promised, the opportunity was ventured. 



Opposing questions, if such existed, relating to the authenticity of 

 the pedigrees to be admitted to its pages did not enter into the com- 

 pilation of the first volume, although many of the elder breeders in 

 several States were consulted. But when the second volume was 

 about to be issued, questions were addressed to them, and the gist of 

 their opinions seemed to be reached in a letter from the late Rev. Dr. 

 Breckenridge, of Danville, Ky., who, aside from his professional 

 labors, was a veteran breeder of Short-horns and other improved 

 stock in Kentucky, to the editor, in which he remarked : 



" I think you act wisely in accepting all pedigrees which run 

 back into the English Herd Books ; for, right or. wrong, that is the 

 fountain of the genealogy of the race at present. But, having taken 

 that apparently inevitable step, it seems to be impossible to refuse to 

 take the next, necessitated by that one, namely, to accept all Ameri- 

 can pedigrees as good as the average pedigrees of the English Herd 

 Book. These two principles cover the whole ground ; and all the 

 rest is merely a question of truth in the alleged pedigrees, concern- 

 ing which, unless the contrary appears, you cannot well avoid recog- 

 nizing the truth of pedigrees that on their face appear to be true. 



" After all, a Herd Book is but a record office. It can neither settle 

 the quality nor the title of the estate admitted to record." 



These remarks, so full of sound logic and good sense, were adopted 

 by the editor, and pedigrees admitted to the English Herd Book were 

 taken as a standard for the future records of the American work. 



Looking at the condition of the American herds and their pedi- 

 grees, let us see how they stood. The early Kentucky and Ohio Short- 

 horn herds had been chiefly founded, first on the Gough or Goff and 

 Miller, or Patton stock, and afterwards commingled with the Sanders 

 importation of 1817, all of them without known pedigrees, as no 

 English Herd Book had then been published; but the iSiy's were 

 certified in their bills of purchase to be well-bred Short-horns. Many 

 of the female produce of these herds, after the year 1826, were bred 



