CHAPTER XIV 

 ANIMAL TYPE AND ITS IMPORTANCE 



Farm animals in early days in America were usually very 

 inferior. The settlers of New England and the older states 

 did not give much attention to live stock. Until we had 

 large cities we had no important live-stock markets. The 

 farmers produced but little more than was needed for the 

 local home sales. In 1830 the first railway was built in 

 America. Before that time, people drove live stock long 

 distances to market. As early as 1804, cattle were driven 

 overland from Ohio to Baltimore to find buyers. West of 

 the Mississippi, large herds of cattle and sheep developed 

 with the settlement of the country. There were great drives 

 of cattle and sheep overland to Kansas City, St. Louis, and 

 other places. It was not till 1865 that the Union Stock 

 Yards of Chicago opened for business. Now it is much the 

 largest live-stock market in the world. 



The study of animal form in a large way really began 

 with the selling of stock in the market. At first people 

 were not very particular. An increase in population, how- 

 ever, increased the demand for meat. Then men began to 

 buy from the farmer and to sell animals in the markets. 

 These sellers naturally noticed certain differences in their 

 stock. They saw that some beasts served a given purpose 

 better than others, and that some were really worth more 

 than others for the same purpose. So the men who sold in 

 the markets began to use special words to indicate the kind 

 of stock under discussion. At first it was onty a "good" 

 animal, or a "poor" one. Then other words came into use to 

 show still finer differences. If one examines the market quo- 

 tations in the early numbers of the oldest agricultural papers, 



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