114 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



A PROMOTER OF BREED ORGANIZATION 



40. Mortimer Levering brought to agricultural industry as 

 broad a range of tastes, as great a degree of varied skill, and 

 as high a perfection of subject mastery as modern America 

 has known. Born of a sturdy stock of Quaker origin he com- 

 bined with its simplicity of style the chivalrous viewpoint of 

 cavaliers, and the artistic and literary perceptions of the Latin. 

 Although his native home was Philadelphia, he early moved to 

 Lafayette, Ind., and there became established as private banker 

 and manager of farm property. At one time he had over twenty 

 farms under his direction, but found time so to devote himself 

 to his banking affairs, that it was his boast that he had never 

 been forced to foreclose on a security. At his country home, 

 Richmond Hill, with its sloping pastures bordering the Wabash, 

 he for years maintained Jerseys, Shropshires, Shetlands and 

 standard-bred poultry. He was one of the organizers of the 

 American Shropshire Registry Association, early in 1881, and 

 was its secretary until the day of his death. Under his regime 

 it developed a larger membership than any sheep society in the 

 world. He was also the secretary of the National Wool Grow- 

 ers' Association for many years, and its eastern vice president 

 thereafter. He took charge of the American Shetland Pony 

 Club records in its feeble childhood, and as its secretary, 

 builded it a perpetuating structure. The American Saddle Horse 

 Breeders' Association made him a director and listened long to 

 his seasoned counsel. He was a founder of the International 

 and the Saddle and Sirloin Club, being secretary of the latter 

 in its days of organization and early equipment. 



Mr. Levering was an enthusiastic sportsman and a seasoned 

 judge of livestock. He was secretary of the Chicago Horse Show 

 Association which not only revived the brilliancies of the old 

 Lake Front Show, but actually outdazzled them at the Coliseum. 

 At Kansas City when challenged by William R. Nelson as to 



