1876 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
333 
The Short-horn Speculation. 
The business of breeding fancy Short-horns has 
diverged widely, and continues to still more widely 
diverge, from a legitimate 
pursuit. We use this 
word legitimate in its 
widest sense, for although 
a man may honestly breed, 
buy, sell, trade, exchange, 
and speculate in Short¬ 
horns, yet when he does 
either of these for any 
other ultimate purpose 
than seeking to supply the 
natural demand by farm¬ 
ers for the means of im¬ 
proving or increasing their 
stock, he is not putting his 
stock to its proper use. 
To use the arts of the spe¬ 
culator in stocks or grain, 
to make fictitious, or as 
the stock brokers call 
them, “ wash ” sales ; to 
misrepresent their stock 
by widely publishing false 
and imaginary pictures 
of them, to procure extra¬ 
vagant prices by a system 
of bidding against bona- 
fide purchasers, and buy¬ 
ing from one another ; to 
create a spurious interest 
in certain classes of stock 
by thus bidding them up 
or buying them at unheard 
of prices, and immediately 
putting them upon the 
market again, so that they 
may go from one breeder’s yards to another’s with 
great eclat and much notoriety—all this is illegiti¬ 
mate and hurtful to the public interest. In so far 
as a bull or a cow may directly or indirectly serve 
to increase the production of milk, butter, or beef, 
or improve the quality of these products, it serves 
its proper purpose, but 
in so far as an animal is 
made simply a medium for 
the transfer of fabulous 
sums of money from one 
pocket to another, and an 
index of the money value 
of every other animal re¬ 
lated to it by blood or 
pedigree, irrespective of 
actual intrinsic value, it 
is a fraud and a deceit. 
There has been much of 
this fraud and deception 
practiced of late in this 
so-called fancy stock busi¬ 
ness, and it is very clear 
that before long some per¬ 
sons will be caught with 
stock for which they have 
paid long prices,but which 
they cannot sell with¬ 
out loss. Tor the sake 
of the speculators, we 
would not care to utter a 
protest, but for the sake 
of the farmers, who are in 
danger of being deceived 
and misled into a false 
idea and estimate of this 
stock, we would remon¬ 
strate against both the sys¬ 
tem of sales and the ab¬ 
surd representations of 
animals called portraits, 
which are widely publish¬ 
ed by the owners in agricultural journals. The sys¬ 
tem of sales is such that in the total record of a 
season’s business, the same animals may be, and to 
a great extent are, sold over and over again ; one 
breeder pur-chasing here and there to make up an 
attractive addition to his own list of animals to be 
offered at his own sale. Thus in the lists of pur¬ 
chasers and sellers the same names recur with fre¬ 
quency, and any person who would suppose that 
the animals sold at the high prices reported are 
short-horn cow “ vivANDiERE,” —From a Photograph. 
destined for use as producers of butter or beef, 
would be greatly mistaken. The stock animals 
that have so improved the quality of Amei-ican 
beef as to make it acceptable in the English market, 
in comparison with the best native beef in that 
country of proverbially excellent meat, have not 
short-horn cow “ vivandiere. "—From a Painting. 
been picked up at these sales, but from the herds 
of breeders who are unheard of or unknown for 
the most part at these noted and well puffed gath¬ 
erings. When we referred at the time to the noted 
sale of the New York Mills Short-horns, we re¬ 
marked that there was not a herd of Short-horns 
in this country the value of which was not en¬ 
hanced by the result of that sale, and we see no 
reason now to recall that judgment, although we 
doubt very much if the butter or beef product of 
the country has been add¬ 
ed to in the least degree 
through any of those high- 
priced cattle there sold. 
But that remarkable sale 
gave a wonderful impulse 
to the popular knowledge 
and appreciation of Short¬ 
horn cattle, and it is since 
then, rather than before 
that time, that the de¬ 
mand for bulls for the im¬ 
provement of our native 
stock has become staple 
and settled. This demand 
would continue to in¬ 
crease if there were not 
another public sale of 
fancy animals, or if all the 
high priced fancy stock of 
the present popular fami¬ 
lies were never heard of 
any more. Nevertheless, 
there can be no objection 
for wealthy breeders to 
make a special pursuit of 
keeping up a herd of the 
fancy strains, if they are 
competent to improve the 
stock, but there are very 
serious objections against 
the present practice of 
making the Short-horn the 
foot-ball of speculation, 
or the prey of any person 
who, simply for the sake 
of making money, buys stock without judgment, to 
couple them without knowledge, that he may dis¬ 
pose of the produce at a profit by virtue of its ped¬ 
igree. There is danger that the best blood of the 
race may be injured or ruined, and in time that a 
lot of ill-bred, degenerate animals may be cast loose 
to still further degrade and 
impoverish the stock. We 
have not yet found a breed¬ 
er of fancy Short-horns 
who would be willing to 
have an accurate portrait 
of his stock published. A 
photograph of one of tlieir 
animals, although it may 
be taken by the most 
competent of artists, or 
one whose pictures of 
other animals have been 
in every way true and 
satisfactory, would be re • 
fused as not at all equal 
to the required standard. 
The “ mold of form ” 
desired is something en 
tirely different from the 
counterpart of nature, and 
the standard fixed upon 
is one that defies all the 
laws of anatomy. These 
efforts of art are simply 
parodies upon nature, and 
can scarcely deceive the 
most ignorant. It can 
only be that the intention 
is to misrepresent and to 
induce persons to believe 
that the animals thus 
misrepresented are differ¬ 
ent from what they are. 
Photography gives as 
nearly accurate a picture 
of the animal as can be desired. The proof of this 
is given in the life-like portraits of many favorite 
Jersey bulls and cows made by Messrs. Schreiber 
& Son, of Philadelphia. That a Short-horn may be 
successfully photographed is shown by the portrait 
