50 
THE HEREFORDS. 
THE HEREFORDS.—No. 2. 
This number will be devoted to the reasons why 
Jhe Hereford herd of Messrs. Corning and Sotham 
is a superior one All men talk in generals about 
cattle, and very few admirers and breeders do other¬ 
wise. My first number, so far as related to the 
nerd, was of that character—and so of necessity. 
It was meant merely to assume a position. That 
being taken, I will now commence, where we all 
in talking of cattle ordinarily stop, viz. the asser¬ 
tion of a broad opinion of approval or condemna¬ 
tion, and give the reasons for the conclusions of 
my judgment. To do this properly some general 
principles must be stated. 
I. Cattle should be uniform in family character, 
presenting as a herd and as individuals the general 
excellences, which distinguish their particular 
breed. Different ones will be above the average 
standard, others below it, but all should have so 
marked an adherence to the general character as to 
be at once recognized. This is to apply of course 
only to good cattle. It will apply to any herd of 
the common cattle of the country. If they be se¬ 
lected in any numbers, they will present great uni¬ 
formity, but in the main it is a uniformity of defect; 
they will vary more in their milking quality 
(boasted as it is by the advocates of the race) than 
in anything else. It is easy to have uniformity of 
defect, hard to have it of excellence. Such is this 
general principle. Who can point to three herds 
in our country of improved cattle, possessing uni¬ 
formity in excellent character ? By this I mean the 
received excellent character of the breed. I know 
but two. The one is the Devon herd of Mr. Patter¬ 
son, of Maryland, the other the herd of Messrs. 
Corning and Sotham. I have seen most of the 
Short-Horn herds in the United States, and am 
familiar with those imported and bred for the last 
fifteen years. I challenge any one to point out a 
herd of Short-Horns in America of any considera¬ 
ble numbers that present uniformity. I do not 
mean of color , That is nothing if it be within the 
true range, viz. red and white, and their mixtures. 
I never heard of but one herd of Short-Horns en¬ 
tirely uniform, and that was Mr. Bates’s, of Kirkleav- 
ington. Up to 1830 they were even in color, all 
red, or red with a small amount of white. In that 
year he introduced the bull Belvedere, a roan, pre¬ 
senting otherwise, however, the same excellent char¬ 
acter as the herd. Since that year the roan has min¬ 
gled in about equal numbers with the red and white. 
His cattle are all uniform in general size and make. 
Any one cow and bull of his will not breed a large 
open boned, loose, fiat-ribbed, light chested calf, 
and one the opposite of all this. The herd of the 
late Earl Spencer (better known as Lord Althorp), 
had uniformity but in one thing, viz. general mascu¬ 
line character; this made all his bulls coarse in 
the head, and his cows rarely or never fine, and 
rather too masculine. He found it very difficult to 
preserve high stamina, and perhaps could not with 
fineness, and so sacrificed fineness for a hardy con¬ 
stitution. This gave an uniformity in one respect 
to his herd, but not a pleasing one. There was vari¬ 
ation in other respects, and he had very good and 
very bad animals, with perhaps a slight prevalence 
of defect. The famous herd of Charles Colling, 
through ‘ffl its periods, presented great dissimilarity 
among its different beasts. During the latter years 
of the life of the celebrated bull Favorite (252), he 
used both Favorite and Comet (155). These two 
bulls derived from the same stock and deeply bred 
in and in, and almost identical in pedigree, were as 
unlike as could be two bulls of the same breed 
Favorite was a fine, large, open-ribbed animal, 
with great style and stamina. His excellences 
consisted in fine handling, and great aptitude 
to feed. His value lay, however, in the superior 
character of his get. They were almost all su¬ 
perior to himself in every respect. The basis 
of the family to which Favorite and Comet belong¬ 
ed, in Colling’s hands, was Lady Maynard. She 
was a fine cow, with great constitution. She was 
bred to Foljambe, and Phcenix was the produce. 
Foljambe was coarse, deriving the coarseness from 
his sire, and so was Phcenix, both having greq£ 
stamina. Favorite was out of Phcenix, and took 
her coarseness. In him there existed a family ten¬ 
dency to fineness and coarseness. Some of his 
calves possessed the fineness, some the coarseness ; 
but as a general thing, his get united both fineness 
and stamina. Thus he made his get superior to 
himself in high show of style and fineness, yet im¬ 
parting his great vigor. Comet was fine and vigor¬ 
ous ; got by Favorite he went back to Lady May¬ 
nard for character and took the stronger tinge from 
her. Yet he had not the full vigor which belonged 
to the Foljambe strain. In Mr. Colling’s herd there 
were all shades of color within the true range, red, 
yellow-red, roan, red-roan, yellow-roan, white, red- 
white, roan-red-white, and flecked. Even after his 
herd was established, it possessed varying animals; 
some so bad as to be worthless, some of the rarest 
excellence. The good ones were descended di¬ 
rectly from superior females, originally purchased 
by him. These were Lady Maynard, the Duchess 
from Stanwix, the original Daisy, and Old Haugh- 
ton. All his excellence came from these four cows. 
He had recourse to the Princess and Red Rose fami¬ 
lies of R. Colling. Yet from the introduction of 
bad crosses on these four families, he had great va¬ 
riation. From his great compactness, fineness, and 
constitution, Hubback got uniformly good stock on 
these families. But Hubback’s stock, as well as 
himself, were disposed to sterility; Bolingbroke 
also was uncertain; from this Favorite was free. 
Hence Favorite was used as long as he could be, 
and upon his own daughters for three or four, and 
in one instance, even six generations (he lived to 
be sixteen years old). Mr. Colling’s long breeding, 
in so indiscriminate a manner, gave him all hues, of 
color (within the true colors), and excellence as 
varying as the color. The families that were dis¬ 
tinguished by great uniformity of color (whatever 
might be the color), were marked by uniformity in 
other respects. His best families were all red and 
white, originally (which was the entire original 
color of the Short-Horns), and where in their de¬ 
scendants the red prevailed, there was greater excel¬ 
lence in the animal and great uniformity in that 
excellence. This chance of a union of greet semi¬ 
nal vigor and great constitution with general toasse- 
ness in Favorite, gave a general tone to all the 
animals of the herds of both Charles and Robert 
Colling (the latter doubtless the better breeder of 
tbe twah and made them vary greatly in their char- 
