The suburban citizen., 1902-06-21
AMERICAS FINE CATTLE
VALUE OF SCIENCE IN BREEDING
PROVED HERE.

| America Dy an hApeft--muny breeds
Combined in the So Called Native Cat
tle-wOrk OF Improving the Herds.
George NJ. Rommel, expert in animal
husbandry of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, says in an Agricultural De
partment bulletin, just issued, that
American breeders of cattle have
equalled if not excelled the results
reached on the other side of the
water. But" he adds, mo suprem-
acy of excellence, no victory in show
ring or market, can efface the memory
of the debt America owes to those
sturdy yeomen whose names adorn
the best herd records of England and
Scotland"
Mr.. RommelS pamphlet Is devoted to
q study of American breeds of beef
cattle, He begins at the very begin
ming, going back to that voyage of
Columbus on which the first cattle
known in the Western Hemisphere are
supposed to have been brought over.
Other Spanish explorers and armed
invaders followed Columbus's exam
pies. bringing not only cattle but horses
as well.
There was an abundance of grass
and water, and as the Spaniards pene-
trated further into the interior Of the
country their herds in growing num-
bers followed them. From these sprang
the native cattle of the West Indies
and Mexico, the long horned steers Of
Texas and the wild horses of the
plains
The next cattle immigration came
with the Portuguese to Newfoundland
and Nova Scotia The French, too,
introduced cattle into Arcadia and New
France
These were carried into the far in
| terror, and as far back as 1850 the
French missionaries in Illinois pos.
sessed considerable herds of cattle,
horses and swine.
Virginia got her cattle from England
soon after the settlement of James.
town. They multiplied in the Old Do
minion very rapidly one contributing
cause being the fact that the law in
| those early days made the killing of
cattle a crime punishable with death
The Pilgrim Fathers began the cat
tie business with three heifers and
bull, brought over from England in the
ship Charity in 1924, New Hampshire
! got her first cattle from Denmark. |
New York from Holland. and Delaware
from Sweden, at about the time the
Charity landed the three heifers and
the bull.
The Grst shipment to the Carolinas |
was from England in 1870, while Geor- !
gla was the last Of all the colonies to
figure as n market for the English ex-
port trade in breeding cattle.
Thus it was that the United States
got its first start in that cattle business |
which in the year of grace 1902 has |
made it possible TO have all the present !
| rumpus about the Meat Trust The |
stock gathered from various parts Of /
Europe were all SO hopelessly inter-
crossed in course Of time that their |
identity was lost, with the result that |
our forefathers had what were known |
as the native cattle of the United |
States. OF this stock Mr. Rommel |
says:
What the native stock was like we |
can best imagine from the stories of |
men now old, and from the scrub stock |
that is even yet the eyesore of many |
American pastures. Blood of Spanish |
Swedish. French. Dutch and English |
with, maybe. a dash of buffalo as they |
wandered westward. gave this stock |
cosmopolitan character that was repre- |
sentative, perhaps, but hardly profita- |
bic.
Lack Of care by farmers, with no |
I Bakewell to point the way to i'm |
provement, brought about a type Of !
animal that century has not vet |
, been able TO absorb"
In the years from 100 to 1887 there
was an awakening. That was the era |
of the fermentiye stage Of Anglo.Saxon !
cattle breeding.
1t was in 1860 that Robert Bakewell !
began the operations which left so
lasting IN impress upon the cattle |
breeding business. He was the first
man to practice systematic inbreeding |
Around Lis name those of all great
improvers Of live stock group them
selves, and from the lessons he taught
by example every breeder to this day
learns the fundamentals Of his craft. ..
He was Leicestershre man, given
little TO talking, and not at all to writ
ing about his methods. A great deal
that he learned by careful experiment
be kept to himself.
His aim was TO secure cattle that !
would fatten on the cmallest amount
of food, and the great success Of his |
art was revealed only by what he did |
and not by what he told anybody to do |
This secret Mr. Rommel describes as
inbreeding in the bands OF a master.
the surest way known to secure an
Improvement of stock.
"0ut Of the dark ages Of ignorance
and the scrub says Mr. Rommel, "by |
leaps and by bounds, using what matc- |