164 



HISTOKY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



advocate of truth, and therefore court investiga- 

 tion ; I have nothing to conceal, and therefore 

 have no occasion to put false interpretations 

 upon passages as clear as the sun at noon, nor 

 to make use of subterfuges of any sort. As to 

 the boasted superiority of the Shorthorns, let 

 us see vifhat the past says. If Mr. Keary vpill 

 search the records of the Smithfield Club, I 

 think he will find the Herefords have taken 

 away more prizes than his favorite Shorthorns, 

 and five times as many as the Devons. Mr. 

 Westcar sold twenty Hereford oxen for two 

 -iiousand one hundred and fifty odd pounds. I 



"QUEEN OP ATHENS" AND CALF, "MY MARYLAND. •" 

 (Bred by John Merryman, Cockeysville, Md.) 



once stated this fact in a letter in the "Farm- 

 ers' Journal," which statement was ridiculed 

 in a letter the following week, written by Mr. 

 Henry Berry [Youatt's authority. T". L. M.J, 

 who was a great advocate for the supremacy of 

 Shorthorns, as a perfect impossibility. A few 

 days after his letter appeared I received one 

 from a gentleman staying at Creslow, contain- 

 ing an extract from Mr. Westcar's books, giv- 

 ing the date of the sale, the name of the butcher 

 they were sold to, and the sum paid for them, 

 amounting, together, to the sum I have men- 

 tioned. Six of them were sold in one deal to 

 Mr. Giblet, of Bond street, for six hundred 

 pounds. Have twenty Shorthorn bullocks ever 

 sold for two-thirds of the money? So much 

 for the past. As to the future, I am ready and 

 willing to test the respective merits of these 

 three breeds in any way Mr. Keary will point 

 out. I only wish it to be clearly ascertained 

 which are the most useful beasts. I am con- 

 vinced in my own mind that no animal of any 

 description can be fatted on the common vege- 

 table produce of a farm so soon, or brought to 

 such jjerfection on gra.ss, hay and roots only, 

 as a Hereford, and this appears to me to be 

 the great desideratum at the present day, that 

 we should be able to convert the vegetable pro- 



duce of our farms into animal matter at the 

 greatest advantage, and that we should not have 

 to go to the foreigner to buy oil cake to feed 

 our beasts when we have enough at home to feed 

 them with if we select the proper animal. I know 

 it is a notion amongst Shorthorn breeders that 

 oxen cannot be fatted without corn or cake. I 

 once showed a fat cow at Bath, and won the 

 prize with her, and sold her to Mr. Hale, the 

 celebrated butcher in that town, who told me 

 she was* the fattest animal he had ever seen. 

 I had given in a certificate that she had been 

 fed on grass, hay and roots only. Some people 

 who saw her thought it impossible she could 

 have been so fed, and somebody, just before the 

 judges entered the yard, threw some oil cake 

 into the manger before her, in hopes the judges 

 might see her eating it. This I was told by 

 one of the judges when he came out of the yard, 

 and he added, she evidently had never seen 

 such a thing before, for she took no notice of it ; 

 we tried her competitors with it, and they ate 

 it up in a minute. So convinced am I of the 

 decided superiority of Hereford cattle for feed- 

 ing purposes over any others, that I am most 

 anxious to see them brought fairly into com- 

 petition, and whenever they are so, honestly and 

 honorably. If the "Journal" committee of the 

 Royal English Agricultural Society wish to act 

 fairly, they ought to publish my letters, that 

 the poison and the antidote may travel together, 

 and let the world determine who is right. I 

 have done nothing underhand, or in secret; I 

 have referred you by name to many most re- 

 spectable men. If I have stated one syllable 

 that is not true, I have afforded you every means 

 of detecting me ; if, therefore, you fail to do 

 so, I have a right to claim from my agricul- 

 tural brethren an implicit reliance on the truth 

 of my statements. Regretting that 1 have oc- 

 cupied so much of your valuable paper, 

 I remain your obedient servant, 



J. R. Smyth lEs, (jj 78) 

 Grey Friars, Colchester, Feb. 16. 



I wrote to Mr. Thomas Brown, editor of the 

 "Ohio Farmer," to find out the clandestine man 

 who signed himself "Agricola," who wrote on 

 "in-and-in breeding," etc., as I considered the 

 remarks he made on that subject doing much 

 injury to the public. His assertions on other 

 ])oints seemed to me truly ridiculous, and that 

 a common sense editor would refuse to publish 

 such stuff. His teachings on breeding, his 

 Shorthorn puffing, and his writing anonymous- 

 ly, condemned him in my estimation. I never 

 knew a man (who is a man) ashamed to own 



