PRACTICAL PAPERS — SHORT HORNS. 
3 07 
original and perfect animals might be improved and made better. 
Just how this idea and this improvement were brought about is not 
now known. It may have been as has been suggested by some 
writer, that a butcher discovered, in cutting up the carcasses of 
cattle for his customers that some of them yielded a better profit 
than others, and being a fair dealing man, offered a larger price for 
this class of better animals. Soon the dealers in cattle learned 
that animals of a certain form were more profitable than others, 
and in their selections of stock to feed for the butcher, bought this 
better kind. At a later period, it was discovered that some 
animals of this better form and more value produced calves of 
somewhat the same form, and the thoughtful men of the day be¬ 
came impressed with the belief that they might grow this better 
class of cattle. 
Thus commenced the improvement in cattle, or as we might 
say, began the process of reinstating animals of the bovine race, 
and growing them up to the character and value they occupied 
when they came from the hands of the Creator. 
From Lewis F. Allen’s history of short-horns, we learn that short¬ 
horns were in existence in the northeastern part of England as 
early as the year 1700, perhaps a short time before, and that tradi¬ 
tion carries them back to a much earlier period. 
It would seem then that the process of improving or restoring the 
bovine race must have begun at quite an early day, if, at the period 
referred to, one branch of the race had made so much progress. 
At the period spoken of, Mr. Allen tells us that down to the 
latter part of the 18th century, there were active, energetic and 
thoughtful men engaged in breeding and improving this class of 
cattle. Little is known of these enterprising men beyond the 
results of their labors in the rearing of cattle, from which the 
present short-horns directly descended. 
From the early part of the eighteenth century to near the last, 
there were many persons engaged in breeding short-horns. About 
the year 1780, a new era in short-horn breeding commenced, when 
the Colling brothers and others of that day bred more intelligently 
and systematically, and perhaps made more progress towards the 
perfect animal than had been previously made. This more sys¬ 
tematic breeding soon became quite popular, and was pursued by 
