306 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
SHORT HORNS. 
Read before the State Agricultural Convention in Feb., 1873, 
BY MAJ. CHAS. II. WILLIAMS, BARABOO. 
I have been a short-horn breeder in a quiet wajq lor quite a 
number of years, but on taking up the subject for the purpose of 
writing an article, was much at a loss to know what to say. In 
breeding this stock and watching results and the progress of the 
business, I have become impressed with the belief, that it is an im¬ 
portant branch of stock growing, and that it would be a great ben¬ 
efit to many farmers to engage in it. I therefore concluded to 
devote my paper, mainly, to saying in a brief way, what I could 
to induce farmers to grow this valuable class of stock. 
It has been a commonly received opinion, that thorough-bred 
•short-horns are improved animals brought to their present size, 
•beauty and symmetry of form from some other inferior class of 
'•cattle, perhaps the so-called native, by the patient and persistent 
•breeding of judicious and thoughtful men, who, by culling out the 
poorer specimens and a generous care of the better ones, for a 
long period of time, at last produced the animals from which the 
short-horns came. This may be the case, but I sometimes think 
another view of the question may be the correct one ; that the 
first animals of the cattle kind created, were perfect animals, de¬ 
signed to add to the comfort, convenience and happiness of man 
—that those animals were stately short-horns, and fora long period 
afterwards, their descendants continued equal in all respects to the 
original stock. At a later period, by the carelessness and negli¬ 
gence of man, for whom they were created, these perfect animals 
began to degenerate a very little each year, until finally after many 
years, perhaps centuries, they became what is now called native 
cattle. 
At some period in the progress of the world and the downward 
course of cattle, just when, would be difficult to say, and is not 
now important, some of the thinking and acting men of that age, 
conceived the idea that these poor natives, reduced from the 
