We find cattle mentioned in the earliest known records of the Hebrews, Chaldeans and Hindus, and carved on the monuments of Egypt, thousands of years before the Christian era.
Among the primitive peoples wealth was, and still is, measured by the size of the cattle herds, whether it be the reindeer of the frigid North, the camel of the Great Sahara, or herds of whatsoever kind that are found in every land and in every clime.
The earliest known money, in Ancient Greece, was the image of the ox stamped on metal; and the Latin word pecunia and our own English "pecuniary" are derived from pecus—cattle.
Although known to the Eastern Hemisphere since the dawn of history, cattle are not native to the Western Hemisphere, but were introduced into America during the sixteenth century.
Cortez, Ponce de Leon, De Soto and the other conquistadores from Old Madrid, who sailed the seas in quest of gold, brought with them to the New World the monarchs of the bull ring, and introduced the national sport of Spain into the colonies founded in Peru, Mexico, Florida and Louisiana.
The long-horned, half-wild herds encountered by the pioneers, and by the "Forty-niners," who three centuries later trekked across the continent in quest of gold in California, were descendants of the bull pens of Mexico City, St. Augustine and New Orleans.
A different type of cattle was brought over to Jamestown, the first English colony, in the seventeenth century; these were strictly utilitarian, designed for the triple service of enriching the larder with dairy products, supplementing the abundant meat supply of buffalo, deer and other game and providing the ox as the draft animal.
The pioneers, striking out from the Atlantic seaboard, carried with them their domestic cattle, which were introduced and fostered wherever settlements were made in their progress across the continent.
It was not until after the Revolutionary War that wealthy planters of Virginia imported Herefords from England, Jerseys from the Isle of Jersey, and the flower of other Old World herds.
Even then, extensive breeding of high-grade animals languished for years, owing to the unprogressive farming methods; and at a later period on account of the dominancy of the Western cattle ranges.