CEOSS BREEDING. 199 



them reaching four hundred guineas, a little 

 more than two thousand dollars. Some time 

 after the sale discussion arose on the subject, 

 some claiming that the cross was made for the 

 distinct purpose of effecting an improvement, 

 and that a real improvement was caused by it. 

 The celebrated pamphlet of the Rev. Henry 

 Berry took this ground. Most Short-horn 

 breeders, however, took the position that it 

 had been done without any serious purpose, 

 that the stock proving good Mr. Colling had 

 retained it and used his Short-horn bulls on it 

 with no thought of repeating the experiment, 

 and that so small was the infusion of alien 

 blood, and so thoroughly had it been crossed 

 out, that it was a matter of little moment one 

 way or another. The effort to discredit the 

 blood was only partially successful, and we 

 find it in the herds of such breeders as Sir H. 

 Yane Tempest and Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates came 

 out at length against it, though he urgently 

 advised the agents of the Ohio Importing Com- 

 pany, in 1834, to purchase of him a bull which 

 had the alloy cross. It is so far behind us that 

 the "alloy" is now only an interesting episode 

 in Short-horn history. 



The interest in crosses has been somewhat 

 reawakened by the success in recent years of 

 cross-bred animals in the fat-stock shows at 

 Chicago and Kansas City. These crosses have 



