42 
IMPORTED SHORTHORNS. 
IMPORTED SHORTHORNS. 
The Bates Stock. —The August number of the 
Agriculturist, for 1849, contains an article on 
the “recent importation of shorthorns,” which 
does not entirely coincide with my views. The 
writer, referring to the bull 3d Duke of Cam¬ 
bridge, which he had recently imported, says : 
“ Breeders, desiring the blood of Mr. Bates, can 
nowhere else, in this country, procure it with such 
high characteristics of style , quality , symmetry , and 
substance .” 
Allow me here, before discussing this para¬ 
graph, to remark, that honorable competition in 
breeding domestic animals, cannot fail to be a 
fruitful source of improvement, and should be 
encouraged by all who desire to see the stock 
of our country ^ised to that high standard 
which its importance so justly merits and de¬ 
mands. The individual, however, who enters 
upon this enterprise with a desire and a deter¬ 
mination to excel, will soon find himself sur¬ 
rounded with perplexities and prejudices which 
he little anticipated; and however desirous he 
may be to avoid controversy, circumstances may 
occur, where justice, both to himself and the pub¬ 
lic, demands that he should no longer remain 
silent. Experience will, also, sooner or later, 
prove that there is neither honor nor profit to 
be acquired by resorting to the frail support of 
either directly or indirectly assailing, or endea¬ 
voring to disparage the stock of others, by the 
assumption of high-sounding pretensions, which 
cannot bear the test of truth and scrutiny. 
But to the point. I presume no one will deny, 
that if any one animal from a herd possesses 
the power of imparting to his produce “ higher 
characteristics of style, quality, symmetry, and 
substance,” than any other animal from the 
same herd, it must possess more of the choice 
blood of that particular herd. To question this, 
is at once doubting the efficacy of blood animals. 
The most natural enquiry, therefore, which 
would arise from a perusal of the sentence 
quoted above, would be—What is the particular 
strain of blood in the late Mr. Bates’ herd, which 
is superior to all others , and which gave him such 
a deservedly wide-spread fame and reputation 
as a breeder ? Let this simple fact be clearly 
defined, and if the 3d Duke of Cambridge pos¬ 
sesses more of such blood than any other bull in 
this country, then he may be fairly entitled to 
his claimed position of superiority. This is a 
point of the greatest importance to breeders of 
shorthorns in this country, and particularly so to 
all who “ wish to procure the blood of Mr. Bates’ 
herd.” 
In order, therefore, to prove to the public con¬ 
clusively, and to place the matter beyond the 
possibility of a doubt, that the choicest blood of 
Mr. Bates’ herd consisted in his pure , unalloyed 
Duchess tribe , I quote his own opinion , from a 
communication addressed to the publishers of 
the print of his bull Duke of Northumberland. 
After giving the pedigree of this bull, Mr. Bates 
says: 
“ The whole of this family of shorthorns are 
alone in my possession, having purchased my 
original cow of this tribe of cattle of the late 
Charles Colling, Esq., of Ketton, near Darling¬ 
ton, 35 years ago; they had been in the posses¬ 
sion of Mr. Charles Colling 20 years. He pur¬ 
chased his original cow from Stanwix, of the 
agent of the late Duke of Northumberland, and 
called her Duchess, (which is the reason I have 
named the bull after that family,) as they are 
justly entitled to be held in commemoration for 
having possessed a tribe of cattle, which Mr. C. 
Colling repeatedly assured me was the best he 
ever had, or ever saw, and that he never was 
able to improve upon her, although put to his 
best bulls. And I have undoubted information 
from the best authority for saying, that this tribe 
of shorthorns were in the possession of the 
ancestors of the present duke for two centuries; 
and that Sir Hugh Smithson, the grandfather 
of the present duke, kept up the celebrity 
of this tribe of cattle by paying the utmost 
attention to their breeding; and that he used 
regularly to weigh his cattle and the food they 
ate, so as to ascertain the improvement made in 
proportion to the food consumed; a system I 
adopted nearly fifty years ago, not knowing that 
it had been previously done ; and from a minute 
and close attention to this subject, I obtained that 
knowledge of cattle which enabled me to judge 
of their real merits by their external characters, 
and which I have never found to fail in my ex¬ 
perience for above forty years as a breeder. 
From that knowledge thus acquired, I selected 
this tribe of shorthorns as superior to all other 
cattle, not only as small consumers of food, but 
as great growers and quick grazers, with the 
finest quality of beef, and also giving a great 
quantity of very rich milk. The cow I bought 
of Mr. C. Colling, in 1804, calved at Halton Cas¬ 
tle, Northumberland, June 7th, 1807; she was 
kept on grass only, in a pasture with nineteen 
other cows, and made in butter and milk, for 
some months, above two guineas per week, or 
42 shillings in English money.” 
I have in this extract the opinion of Mr. Bates 
himself, in regard to the Duchess blood, as being 
“ superior to all other also confirmed by the 
opinion of Mr. Charles Colling, who said “ It 
was the best he ever had or ever saw” Now, whether 
this 3d Duke of Cambridge possesses more 
Duchess blood, or, if you please, has the blood 
of Mr. Bates’ herd with “ higher characteristics 
of style, quality, symmetry, and substance, than 
any other bull in this country,” a brief refer¬ 
ence to pedigrees will show. 
Pedigree of 3d Duke of Cambridge (5,941). 
Roan, calved Sept. 14th, 1841; bred by Thomas 
Bates; got by Duke of Northumberland (1,940) ; 
dam Waterloo II., by Belvedere (1,706) ; gran- 
dam by Waterloo (2,816); great grandam by 
Waterloo (2,816). See English Herd Book, 
vol. 4, page 614. 
By this pedigree, it will be seen that 3d Duke 
of Cambridge possesses only one quarter of 
Duchess blood—his sire, Duke of Northumber¬ 
land, (1,940,) being a half Duchess bull, and his 
dam, Waterloo II., having no Duchess blood in her. 
Among the individuals who have imported 
stock to this country from the late Mr. Bates’ 
herd, I believe the importations of Mr. George 
