OF THE SADDLE AND SIRLOIN CLUB 283 
AMERICA’S MOST CONSTRUCTIVE SWINE BREEDER 
111. The tale of Berkshire improvement in America is only 
complete when one considers Berkshire types in seasons before 
the advent of Wood Dale Farm in breeding and showrings, and 
the stamp that prevailed thereafter. “The Master Breeder, 
who has led the Berkshire breed up from the depths into a 
position of commanding eminence,” is NicHoLas H. Gentry. 
In early years the Berkshire was a short, compact fine-boned 
pig, whose prick ears and short face were deemed non-concomi- 
tant with the deep side, long body and finished scale that 
market bacon and lard ideals demanded. So thoroughly had 
this notion been inculcated into the American swine producers, 
that the grass nurtured hog of the Miami valley and the mas- 
sive framed descendant of the Jersey Red gradually over- 
whelmed the qualitied progeny of English pork triumphs. To 
“Nick” GENTRY more than to any other man, is due the credit 
for the re-establishment of the breed’s prestige and the promo- 
tion of its distribution. 
N. H. Gentry was born on Wood Dale Farm, March 16th, 
1850. His grandfather, REUBEN GENTRY, had entered the land 
from the Government direct, and had settled on it in 1819, just 
one century ago. Not an acre of it has ever been transferred 
from the family and the title reads only in the GENTRY name. 
The pioneer GENTRY emigrated from Madison Co., Kentucky, to 
Missouri in 1809, fast on the heels of DAanieL Boone. Both 
REUBEN GENTRY and son lived the fullness of their years on 
Wood Dale Farm, but it was not until 1875 when N. H. Gentry 
paid the SNELLs of Edmonton, Ontario, $1,800 for three imported 
Berkshires that the standard of purebred livestock was placed 
at the head of the farm policy. 
From the blood of these three individuals came the entire 
herds of later years. Mr. Gentry’s system of linebreeding and 
inbreeding his Longfellows, Lees and Duchesses so patently 
