68 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



THE PROPHET OF A NATION'S HUSBANDRY 



21. The pioneer in the general field of livestock journalism was 

 James Harvey Sanders, a banker and railway contractor of 

 southeastern Iowa. Mr. Sanders was born in Ohio in the Scioto 

 Valley, his parents being native Virginians. In 1868 he had 

 attained sufficient financial independence to indulge an inherent 

 fondness for improved livestock, and he secured at a good price 

 a seven-eighths Percheron horse named Victor Hugo, in Central 

 Ohio. This horse was shipped to Iowa and was the second animal 

 of heavy type to be brought into the state. Mr. Sanders followed 

 him with the imported horse Dieppe, an4 the American-bred Dili- 

 gence, both of Dillon ownership, the former stallion bringing 

 $3,000 and the latter $2,500. At the same time he introduced a 

 high type of Clydesdale, the $5,000 stallion, Donald Dinnie. 



The extension of good breeding stock throughout the Missis- 

 sippi Valley states suggested to Mr. Sanders the publication of a 

 periodical to be devoted to the interests of blooded stock. Chris- 

 tened the "Western Stock Journal," and printed on a hand power 

 press with its pages stitched together by the members of the 

 editor's family, it received instant approval in Iowa and the neigh- 

 boring states, and was the first purely livestock periodical ever 

 issued in the world. About this time Mr. Sanders purchased the 

 first purebred Shorthorn to be introduced into this country. One 

 more step in the building of a local agriculture remained for him 

 to take, and in the late 60's he brought out from Ohio one of 

 the early Poland-Chinas of Magie breeding. Following this he 

 bought a pair of Essex which were unsuccessful, and then somo 

 heavy boned Cheshires. 



The panic of 1873 spread ruin in J. H. Sanders' path. The 

 railroad in which he was interested was wrecked, and the accumu- 

 lations of some twenty years entirely absorbed. Hence when 

 George W. Rust and John P. Reynolds of Chicago called Mr. 

 Sanders to the monthly "National Livestock Journal," a con- 



