388 



HISTOEY OP HEEEFORD CATTLE 



sire to avoid traveling his cattle down, shows 

 the weakness of his breed of Durhams. As he 

 says he has 150 miles to travel to go to Eock- 

 hampton while I have only 90 miles to go, I 

 will travel my Herefords another 60 miles to 

 make up the 150, and so give him no cause of 

 complaint. Again, what does he mean by mak- 

 ing 'condition' a leading point to suit Mr. 

 Beardmore. It is 'condition' and 'condition' 

 only that he 'challenged on' in his letter of the 

 9th of February. I look on Mr. Peberdy's chal- 



ELTON 1ST (9875) 11245. 

 Bred by Earl & Stuart. Celebrated son of Sir Richard 2d 



(4984) 970A. 



lenge as a piece of 'blow' and nothing more, and 

 that he has no intention of bringing things to 

 a point. I am, sir, etc., 



"Beaedmore of Tooloombae." 

 (There is no date to Mr. Beardmore's letter. — 

 Ed. Q.) 



We have several other letters pertaining to 

 this controversy. We give but one of these, and 

 that signed by John Fulford, of Lyndhurst, and 

 dated the 21st of April, and which appeared in 

 the "Queenslander" of May 10th : 



"To the Editor of the 'Queenslander': 



"Sir: I note in Mr. W. K. Peberdy's chal- 

 lenge letter of 22d January a sneer at the lim- 

 ited experience of some of the Queensland 

 breeders of Herefords, who, he says, 'have been 

 engaged in their production only a few years.' 

 I do not know to whom he refers when he makes 

 that statement, but he evidently loses sight of 

 the fact that the majority of the Hereford 

 breeders were breeders of Shorthorns before 

 they commenced to breed Herefords, and there- 

 fore can lay claim to a larger experience than 

 men who have bred Shorthorns only, and should 

 be in a better position to know which breed is 

 most suitable to this country. All cattlemen 

 know that no breed of cattle were more abused 



than Herefords were for many years in Aus- 

 tralia and the fact of their coming into favor 

 at all — considering how little capital has been 

 invested in them, and how few have been im- 

 ported, compared to the fortunes spent in im- 

 porting Shorthorn bulls and cows from Eng- 

 land, and animals bred in the Colonies — speaks 

 volumes to the mind of the unprejudiced per- 

 son. However, it has not taken our American 

 cousins many years to find out the superiority 

 of the Hereford breed over Shorthorns under 

 conditions almost identical with our own 

 Queensland — namely, where the cattle have ex- 

 isted on grass alone, as they do in Texas, Col- 

 orado and other states, and where they are sub- 

 ject to drought, cold and wet, and have to 

 travel long distances to market, as most of the 

 Australian cattle have to do. No one can say 

 that Hereford cattle have as yet had a fair trial 

 in Queensland, as putting a few white-faced 

 bulls into a herd for a year or so, and then re- 

 verting to Shorthorn bulls is not giving them a 

 trial at all, and with the exception of a few 

 herds that is all the trial they have had. How- 

 ever, I am told that Messrs. Archer, of Grace- 

 mere, who, I think, were the oldest breeders of 

 pure Shorthorns in Xorth Queensland, are 

 using nothing but Hereford bulls in their gen- 

 eral herd, and many others are following their 

 example, I believe, in the neighborhood of Eock- 

 hampton ; and I know of several stations fur- 

 ther north that are doing the same. Mr. Peb- 

 erdy says that correspondence on the subject 

 should come from proprietors of fattening pad- 

 docks, drovers and butchers, and not from the 

 breeders ; but I think if we had to wait for 

 their views (in print) on the subject we should 

 not be enlightened very soon. But I can give 

 one instance of the estimation Hereford cattle 

 are held in, by one practical man, who, I believe, 

 fattens largely, by referring to an advertisement 

 in the 'Queenslander," signed J. M'Connel (of 

 Durundur, Brisbane Eiver), a short time since, 

 wanting to purchase a thousand Hereford store 

 bullocks. He, too, is an old breeder of Short- 

 horns, yet he evidently prefers Herefords for 

 fattening on his country. Mr. Peberdy evi- 

 dently thinks his challenge to the few Hereford 

 breeders of the Leechard district is, as he terms 

 it, 'a true invasion of the Hereford strong- 

 hold,' while to me it appears as a very cheap 

 means of letting the public know that he has a 

 certain number of pure Shorthorn cows, bred in 

 South Wales, for which he paid large sums of 

 money ; and it might be some of those identical 

 cows, that probably had the advantage of Eng- 

 lish grasses and hand-feeding (and" in conse- 

 quence may be well-grown, heavy cows), that he 



