788 A HISTORY OP HEREFORD CATTLE 



000, has 18,000 acres of patented land, all under 

 fence. Manager William Marr had his earliest ex- 

 perience with Hereford cattle in North Park, Lari- 

 mer Co., Colo., beginning in 1880, and in a letter 

 written to the author several years ago testified as 

 follows : 



"I have used several hundred Hereford bulls and 

 have at present between thirty and forty, the bal- 

 ance being Shorthorns. I think the Hereford a good 

 cross on big strong rough cows, but no better than 

 a Shorthorn, in fact, I do not think as good on a well 

 bred smooth bunch of cows. It is my experience 

 that Hereford bulls have made their greatest suc- 

 cess on the range and elsewhere when the cow herds 

 had been previously more or less improved by the 

 use of Shorthorn blood. The best cross on the 

 Texas cow was the Shorthorn, afterwards the Here- 

 ford; the latter seemed to smooth them up and give 

 them a uniform color. It has been my experience 

 that with continuous use of Hereford bulls my cat- 

 tle got to weigh less, and for the past six or seven 

 years I have be^n using as many Shorthorn bulls as 

 Herefords, and am getting more size and weight. 



"In my neighborhood the Hereford has been 

 pushed more than the Shorthorn by the owners of 

 purebred herds. There were no purebred Short- 

 horn herds, and the Hereford did well on the coarse 

 western cows. They are good rustlers, and on cows 

 with no particular breeding they would get a calf 

 with a white face. My idea of an animal for the 

 range is a cross between the Shorthorn and Here- 

 ford, and if I was starting a herd again I would get 

 Shorthorn cows and Hereford bulls." 



The Sparks Herd. — The large and first-class 

 Alamo herd maintained for so many years by the 



