688 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



and their contemporaries in the extreme south 

 of Texas, cattle were introduced into the central and 

 northern portions of the giant state. The founda- 

 tion herds were longhorns, but in the late '50 's and 

 the years just preceding the outbreak of the Civil 

 War in 1861 the owners had made strenuous efforts 

 to improve the breed. Shorthorn bulls, mainly from 

 Kentucky and Missouri, were freely bought, and 

 while the death rate among them constituted a heavy 

 tax upon their enterprising buyers, the persistency 

 with which the policy was pursued at last mani- 

 fested itself in a gradual betterment of the general 

 cattle stock of that entire region; so much so that 

 when the great expansion in cattle ranching set in 

 after the close of the war the pastures lying to the 

 north of San Antonio contained a leaven of "Dur- 

 ham" blood that ultimately leavened a large pro- 

 portion of the entire lump, while on the lower ranges 

 the so-called "coast" cattle were still of the dis- 

 tinctly longhorned type. 



The Mormon Cattle. — The early Mormon emigra- 

 tion to Utah was a considerable factor in fixing the 

 cattle stocks of that region, for these people took 

 with them good milking cows largely of Shorthorn 

 blood. In the early '80 's Utah still had many good 

 descendants of these valuable milch cows, and many 

 a ranch was stocked with cattle bought in the Mor- 

 mon settlements. These cattle, however, had the 

 habit of milk-giving too strongly pronounced to make 

 them ideal range stock, as the cows frequently lost 

 parts of their udders from having more milk than 



