OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 259 
considered as desirable as timber land. Many believed that it 
would be a century before the prairie would be settled, due to 
the exposure to cold bleak winds and the difficulty of obtaining 
fuel. By 1842 as a result of saving all the money he could and 
investing it in land he was owner of 240 acres. During this 
year he married and began running cattle on the open grass of 
Sangamon and Logan counties. This stock was secured from 
other settlers and was descended from the best blood of the 
Ohio and Kentucky Shorthorns. Mr. Gittetr determined to 
cultivate to corn all of the land he could secure. Although 
corn sold at only 6 to 8 cents a bushel, it was quite profitable 
when put through cattle. He fenced his pastures, selected his 
best heifers, and in 1850 bought his first purebred bull, a Short- 
horn, secured to effect his feeder ideal, from the herd of Mr. 
THomas SKINNER. From time to time he bought more good 
bulls of Shorthorn blood, but always paid more attention to 
individual merit than pedigree. He was not a breeder as he 
always purchased his own sires, but he stayed neither hand nor 
pocketbook when he found animals that met his concept. He 
omitted no opportunity to purchase all the cattle his neighbors 
had to sell and his wonderful ability to judge the quality and 
weights of cattle on the hoof often netted him $500 profit on a 
single day’s work. 
By 1852 Mr. GiLLett had the largest farm and the greatest 
number of cattle, horses and hogs, of any farmer in Logan Co. 
He employed a number of men to attend to the manual labor 
of feeding and herding the cattle, and several tenants to farm 
the land and raise his corn at 10 to 15 cents a bushel, thereby 
conducting his farming and stock feeding operations on the 
largest possible scale. He conceived the purpose of supplying 
the Chicago market with a line of grade steers that would 
excel anything received there, and there is little question but 
what he accomplished his purpose. At the end of his first 
