TUK HEREl'OKDS. 69 



our Western States. Few of them have been introduced there, 

 and those, perhaps, not in the right hands to pusli them to the 

 best advantage. We could wish for them a fairer trial; but the 

 prejudice agaiast the ' cows as milkers, and the lack in their 

 taking appearance as a highly distinctive race, in comparison 

 with the more popular short-horns, have kept them back in 

 public demand. Their time has not yet come ; and it may be, 

 that in the right hands, and with a more critical observation 

 among our cattle breeders and graziers, they may acliieve a 

 reputation as a grazing beast, equal to some now considered 

 their superiors. 



In their native counties in England, they still hold a high rank, 

 and at the prize shows in the London markets compete success- 

 fully with other improved breeds. With all the deficiencies which 

 the advocates of other breeds allege against them, the Herefords 

 still retain their reputation among their English breeders, who 

 hold on to them with a pertinacity which shows an unabated con- 

 fidence in their merits and profit as a true grazier's beast. We 

 might show recorded tables of their trials, in England, with 

 short-horns, and the relative profits of their feeding for market, 

 in which the Herefords gained an advantage on the score of 

 economy; but as the trials were not from birth to slaughter, 

 and the comparative early advantages of each breed were 

 omitted in the account, a repetition of the tables here would 

 not be conclusive. 



There has been much controversy in England, and there might 

 be some in America, were there Herefords enough here to raise 

 the question, as to the manner in which tliey have been improved 

 within the last eighty or ninety years. Their opponents allege 

 that they have had a stealthy short-horn cross, and it is not cer- 

 tain that in these controversies the Hereford breeders have 

 always denied it. All the accounts that we have seen, show 

 that the old Herefords were dark red, almost brown in color. 



