142 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
May, 
meliorating ancient customs, while the mass to be influ¬ 
enced,’ were almost impenetrably be-elouded by prejudi¬ 
ces in favor of those customs. Now , there is a great ac¬ 
cession of enlightened and willing minds to operate upon. 
You have then, Messrs. Editors, every encouragement 
to persevere in your enterprising and noble efforts to 
disseminate correct and improved principles and me¬ 
thods of husbandry, with the consciousness that you are 
conferring not only individual, but national benefits. 
F. Holbrook. Brattleboro’, Vt., Feb. 7, 1849. 
Ijjbtorg of fentuckg (Cattle. 
Eetier from Dr. Martin. 
The following is the letter to which we alluded in our 
March No., embracing the questions we addressed to Mr. 
Sanders, and Dr. Martin’s reply to the same. The 
letter was originally sent to Mr. S. r and was forwarded 
by him to us. Eds. 
Dear Sir —Your letter of the 25th ult. is just re¬ 
ceived, and I will try to answer your inquiries. Your 
first question is, 
“ 1st. What breed, cross, or variety [of cattle] has 
been found most profitable in your region, for beef; and 
what for the dairy ?” 
The improved Short Horns and their crosses are most 
profitable for beef. They are of large size and fatten 
easily at any age, so as to come early to maturity, and 
they carry a large portion of their flesh upon the best 
parts, and their beef is of an excellent quality. They 
pay better for food consumed than any other cattle that 
I have fattened or grazed. • 
In regard to the milking qualities of the improved 
Short Horns, there appears to be much diversity of 
opinion. Some contending that they are the best milk¬ 
ers we have ever had in the country, and others that 
they are worthless. The truth is that some tribes of 
Short Horns are remarkable for the quantity of milk 
they give, and other tribes are equally so for their 
small yield. 
I purchased two cows at Col. PowePs sale in 1836. 
One of them, a cow of the Daisy tribe, was a steady 
milker, giving from twenty-eight to thirty-two quarts 
of milk daily. The other was scarcely able to raise 
her calf. And the qualities of each have been trans¬ 
mitted to their descendants, for several generations. 
The cows that I imported from England were all fine 
milkers, and so are their descendants. The cows of 
those milking tribes are generally thin whilst giving 
milk, but fatten very quickly when dry. The steers of 
the milking tribes are equal and generally superior as 
grazier’s stock to the others. Mine have been superior, 
which I attribute to their having been better nourished 
by their mothers. 
‘‘2d. Which of the breeds imported in 1817, the 
Long Horns, or Short Horns, have succeeded best ?” 
There was a close contest for many years between 
the Long Horns, Short Horns, and Herefords. Each 
had their advocates, and each produced a stock that 
was a great improvement as grazing stock, upon the 
native and Patton stock, (as the old unimproved Short 
Horns introduced by Mr. Patton, were called.) This 
contest was kept up until about 1830, when the advo¬ 
cates of the Short Horns became most numerous. The 
Long Horns and Herefords were gradually bred to 
Short Horn bulls, uutil the pure breed of the two for¬ 
mer are nearly extinct. 
“3d. How do the Long Horns of that importation, 
[1817] or their descendants, compare with the Patton 
Long Horns ?” 
Mr. Patton was one of the original importers in 1783 
of two breeds of cattle. They were then called the 
milk and beef breed. The milk breed were Short Horns. 
The beef breed had longer horns; but I have always 
supposed they were the unimproved Herefords.* I am 
not aware that there ever was brought to Kentucky, 
any of the full bred beef breeds, so that my opinion 
that they were Herefords is based upon the appearance 
of the half bloods which I have seen. Mr. Patton 
brought to Kentucky the full bred milk breed and half 
blood cows of the beef breed. A son of Mr. Patton 
brought to Kentucky a half blood bull of the beef 
breed, and Mr. Smith brought also a bull, which was 
half beef and half milk breed, called Buzzard. Mr, 
Patton’s Short Horns were very fine animals. They 
were fine boned, heavy fleshed, and came early to ma* 
turity, and fattened kindly, and were extraordinary 
milkers. They were much larger than cattle that vr© 
had in the state previously. Mr. Patton brought only 
one cow of this breed, and she had no female descend¬ 
ants. The produce of these fine cattle was very much 
injured by breeding them to bulls which were descend¬ 
ants of the beef breed, such as Inskeep’s Brindle, and 
Smith’s Buzzard. These cattle produced a large, 
coarse, big-jointed stock, that came slowly to maturity, 
difficult to fatten, but when fully grown were of enor¬ 
mous dimensions. 
This was the state of things in 1817, when your im¬ 
portation of Short Horns and Long Horns was made. 
I remember, well, examining the Long Horn bull (-/Ri¬ 
sing Sun ) soon after Messrs. Cunningham &, Co. bought 
him, and I then thought him the finest animal of the ox 
kind I had ever seen. His stock was very fine—vastly 
superior to the coarse stock above described. I 
sold a cow, (got by Rising Sun,} to a butcher who 
paid me for a thousand pounds, nett meat—a very un¬ 
usual size for a cow in those days. 
“ 4th. How do the Short Horns, imported in 1817, 
or their descendants, compare with those that have 
since been introduced, including those of the Ohio Im¬ 
porting Company ?” 
The Short Horns of 1817 were fine boned, heavy 
fleshed animals, that came early to maturity, and fat¬ 
tened much easier than the Patton stock, (especially 
after the latter had been mixed with the beef breed.) 
They fattened mostly on the outside, so that they al¬ 
ways showed their fat to the best advantage. Their 
flesh was rather inclined to hardness, which was a con¬ 
siderable drawback upon their excellence. 
The best of the improved Short Horns, introduced 
within the last twenty years, have all the good quali¬ 
ties that the stock of 1817 had, and they have these 
additional advantages;—Their flesh is soft, [tender] 
and they throw a portion of their fat in among the lean, 
* The terms “ beef breed ” and “milk breed,” seem to have 
been used to designate varieties of cattle which were respective¬ 
ly distinguished for milk and beef—the particular breeds to which 
they belonged, not being generally known at that day. The “ Pat¬ 
ton stock ” appears to have been of two different breeds, both of 
which were obtained by Matthew Patton, from (or through) Mr. 
Gough, of Maryland, who is said to have been “ an importer of 
British cattle.” Those first obtained, are described by Benjamin 
Harrison, a grandson of Mr. Patton, as long-horns—the cows, he 
says, had “ very long horns.” In 1795, several years after the cat¬ 
tle just named had been obtained, Mr. Patton, it is said, “procured 
from the before-mentioned Gough, a bull called Mars and heifer 
called Venice ” [Venus?]. These are represented as “full blood 
English cattle,” and appear to have been Short Horns. [See 
Judge Beatty’s work on “ Practical Agriculture,” pp. 33, 34—-al¬ 
so, Mr. Harrison’s account in the Franklin (Ky ) Farmer,” 
vol. ii. p. 196.] The Mr. Gough alluded to was probably an im¬ 
porter of various breeds of “ British cattle.” In Parkinson’s 
“ Treatise on Live Stock,” the author of which spent several 
years in America shortly after the close of the Revolutionary war, 
Mr. Gough is spoken of as having imported “ cattle of the York¬ 
shire kind.” It is added—” they were of the large, coarse sort,” 
and that “ they answered very indifferently in America,” the poor 
quality of their flesh rendering them disliked by the butchers. 
[See “ Parkinson on Live Stock,” vol. i. p. 108.] We have seen 
what was called “ Patton stock ” in the neighborhood of Ohili- 
cothe, (O.,) and also in Kentucky. They appeared to be a mix¬ 
ture. of long horns and short horns, and (with due deference to Dr. 
Martin) we did not discover in them any points denoting Hereford 
blood. Eds. 
