Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1902-06-20
AMERICAS FINE CATTLE
VALUE OF SCIENCE IN BREEDING
PROVED HERE.

husbandry of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, says in an Agricultural De-
partment bulletin, just issued, that
eQualled if not eXcelled the results
reached en- the other side of the
water. But" he adds, mo suprem-
acy of excellence, no victory in show
ring OF 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. Rommcl's pamphlet is devoted to
study of American breeds Of beef
cattle. He begins at the very begin
ming, going back to that voyage of
Columbus en- which the first cattle
known in the Western Hemisphere are
supposed to have been brought over.
Other Spanish explorers and armed
invaders followed Colunbus's exam
pies, bringing not only cattle but horses
as well.
There was an abundance Of grass
and water AMI as the Spaniards pene-
trated further into the interior Of the
country their herds in growing nun-
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 If 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 Dos
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 a
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 first shipment to the Carolnas
was from England in 1910, while Geor-
gia was, the last of all the colonies to
figure as a market for the English OK
port trade in breeding cattle.
Thus it was that the United States
got it's first start in that cattle business
which in the year of grace 1902 has
made it possible to have all the present
rurnpus 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 he'd what were known
rs 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, dash of buffalo as they
wandered westward, gave this stock a
cosmopolitan character that was repre-
sentative, perhaps, Tut hardly proflta-
bic.
Lack of care by farmers, with no
provement, brought about a type of
animal that a century has not yet
been able to absorb"
In the years from 1850 to 1887 there
was en- awakening. That was the era
OF the fermentive stage of AnSlo-SaXOn
cattle breeding.
1t was in 1860 that Robert Blackwell
began the operations which left so
lasting an impress upon the cattle
breeding business. He was the first
man to practice systematic inbreeding.
Around his 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.
nc was a Leicestershire man, given
little to talking, and not at all to writ
Ing about his methods. A great deal
that he learned by careful experiment
he kept to himself.
His aim was to secure cattle that
would fatten on the smallest 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 hands Of master,
the surest way known to secure an
Improvement of stock.
"Out of the dark ages of ignorance
and the scrub" says Mr.. Rommel, "by
leaps and by bounds, using what mate
rial he had at hand. and moulding it
to his will, the English farmer dcvel-
Oped the modern breeds; producing
tender meat where tough and leathery
fibre had been before, paying the rent
with his cattle and his sheep, and in
time contributing very largely TO the
growth of agriculture in the New
World"
The Improvement in America began
almost simultaneously with that in
England No sooner had the Revolu-
tionary War closed than importations