OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 127 



in all three breeds, while for America he is perhaps the greatest 

 Galloway breeder of all time. For many years he was presi- 

 dent of the Clydesdale Association and devoted largely of his 

 energies to its promotion. He was president of the Minnesota 

 Board of Agriculture, and under his administration secured the 

 presentation of the Minnesota State Fair Grounds by Ramsey 

 county and a state appropriation of $150,000 to equip it. When 

 the development of the program resulted in a $110,000 shortage 

 he used his own personal check to carry the indebtedness until 

 the legislature reimbursed him. 



Mr. Clarke was chairman of the committee of eighteen on 

 the livestock interests at the Columbian Exposition, and was the 

 first man to make its wants known in Washington. His Clydes- 

 dales were high in the monies, rivalling the entries of Mr. Ogil- 

 VIE (6) and CoL. Holloway (44). He imported large numbers 

 of this breed to furnish the breeders of the state with purebred 

 stallions. Many of his horses were sold on ten years' time, and 

 the ruinous years of the mid-nineties left him with much unne- 

 gotiable paper. Like Mr. Ogilvie, Mr. Clarke believed in the 

 ultimate supremacy of the Darnley stock, and while he lived to 

 see its ascendancy, he failed to know of its almost complete 

 dominance of the Scots' draft world. His Shorthorns were 

 superb. For a period of twenty years scarcely a herd of promi- 

 nence was found in the north and central west that did not boast 

 one or two animals of Meadow Lawn blood, while the names of 

 Justice, Ringmaster, Dorothea 2d and Snowbird (dam of Fair 

 Acres Sultan) are writ large on the Shorthorn showyard scroll. 

 His Galloways completely dominated the gatherings of the late 

 years of the last and the opening years of this century, and the 

 Welcomes and Claras of Meadow Lawn provided a blood foun- 

 dation for more than one Galloway pioneer. Much credit for 

 his success in the field of breeding must be given to his herds- 

 man and livestock manager, Leslie Smith, who contributed 



