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Page 31
RICHARD FAIRFAX--A BULL STORY WITHOUT PEER
July 20, 1936
Mr. B.C. Byers
Macatawa, Mich.
My dear Mr. Byers:
I haven't been in Indianapolis since I started the two little
girls up into Maine to a girls camp, so unless I succeed in
cooking up something, this letter will be a fizzle for news.
In May I bought a 16-months old Hereford bull, Hugh Fairfax by
name, at the McCray Sale at Kentland. Since that time I bought a
McCray-bred Fairfax Hereford bull from a Mr. Dillman at Waveland,
and also traded an old Woodford Hereford bull to the Indiana
State Farm for another McCray-bred Fairfax Hereford. So you see I
am slightly in the bull business.
For your information, you knowing nothing about anything except
railroading and good looking women, Mr. Warren T. McCray got his
big start in Herefords after he acquired Perfection Fairfax, a
Hereford bull that afterwards won the International Championship,
and was acknowledged generally to be the greatest sire of his
day. He started the "Fairfax" fashion.
In getting the pedigrees of these last two bulls straightened
out, I made four trips to Kentland. The trip prior to the last
one found the ex-Governor in a petulant frame of mind. He called
me "Senator" very formally, was easily irritated and gave this
and that as an excuse for the delay. The truth is, I think, that
his herd books have been kept in about the same condition as Joe
C-- kept his desk in the Senate Chamber.
But my last trip was different. When I got there the old boy was
in his office selling a Hereford to some young fellow from the
north part of the state--I hope Lake County, because anybody from
Lake County needs a trimming. I stayed outside and eventually
they came out.
"Why, hello, Mr. Andy," said Warren T. "How are you this fine
day?"
It was hotter than Tom B-- ever got in a poker game.
I knew the old fellow had had a good breakfast, and that he had
no doubt spliced me up a pair of pedigrees of some sort or other.
I just sort of imagine that when a herd book gets slightly mixed
up, or time has elapsed and a given bull's heredity sort of lost
in the hazy past, that those fellows quietly sit down and whittle
out a pedigree that sounds about right. . .
Let me tell you a bull story about as he related it to me last
Friday. This is Warren T. speaking:
"About 1902 or 1903, I wanted to branch out bigger, buy more land
and become a Hereford leader for sure. . . Mr. -- was showing
Herefords in Indianapolis. He had by far the best bull I had seen
or heard of. His name was Perfection Fairfax, and he had a
pedigree that read like the Lees of Virginia. . . The only way
his owner would part with him would be to sell his whole herd of
37 cows too--for $17,000 cash. I brought him home to Kentland. He
won the International Championship and we both became famous in
the Hereford world. The Fairfax strain took the country by storm.
His sons and daughters were sensations. He lived until he was
past 17 years old, and was a virile breeder to the day of his
death."
"Look up yonder on the knoll past the machine shop and the big
barn. See that cement column up there? The boys here at the farm
erected that monument, and old Perfection Fairfax lies right
under it. He died in 1918. Old Perfection made breeders millions
of dollars. Look up there on the wall to my right. See that oil
painting? That is Perfection Fairfax. I had a famous artist paint
that. See that long picture over there on the wall east of old
Perfection? That is a picture of 32 of his sons I sold at one
time to one breeder down in the Argentine. We had that picture
taken the day they left the farm. They made me some money."
"What is the highest price, Governor, that you ever got for a
bull?" I asked.
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