798 A HISTORY OF HEREFORD CATTLE 



sisting of two registered and thirty or more grade 

 bulls. The herd upon which our first Herefords 

 were crossed was obtained from R. K. Miley of 

 this state. While I have used some Shorthorn 

 bulls I have preferred the Herefords ever since we 

 began using them. ' ' 



Ike Pryor Prefers Herefords. — One of the best 

 known Texas cattle-growers is Hon. Ike T. Pryor 

 of San Antonio. He bought his first Hereford bulls 

 in 1880 from Towers & Gudgell, and placed them 

 on his ranch in Colorado. Thereafter he followed 

 up this purchase each year with other registered 

 Herefords, principally from Missouri and Kansas, 

 until 1885. Between 1880 and 1884 Pryor Bros, 

 bought large herds of grade Herefords in Colorado, 

 as well as several lots of Shorthorns, and turned 

 them on the open range in the southern part of that 

 state. As already set forth in these pages the hard 

 winter of 1884-85 gave the different breeds of cat- 

 tle on the open range a thorough test of ability to 

 withstand the hardships incident to open range con- 

 ditions. Referring to this experience Mr. Pryor 

 says: 



"At least 75 per cent of our high-bred Short- 

 horn cattle died in that disastrous winter, while not 

 over 25 per cent of the Herefords died — all running 

 on the same range. This convinced me that the 

 Hereford was the best animal a stockman could use 

 for range purposes. 



"I am the owner today of a large herd of Here- 

 ford cows on the Membres River in Grant Co., N, 

 M. This is a mountainous range and I am using 

 on this ranch exclusively registered Hereford bulls, 

 because of the fact that bulls from this breed of 



