delmonico's when abraham lincoln dined at delmonico's, about a 20 ounce cut of sirloin was his favorite dish. it's still amazes me that lincoln could eat that and still not put on much weight. the dining at delmonico's was amazing and very elaborate. many courses. the beef was starting to replace other cuts, particularly lamb, but also seafood as beef became more popular. mccoy also realized that with all the people in the city there was a potential market for cheap meet. if you could get it into that market. these were the stock trains that came into the city on a daily basis, bringing cattle from particularly one-state all together. that is where most of the cattle, well into the whole trail driving years, those 20 years. most of the cattle coming in to new york city was from the state of illinois. very seldom were texas cattle themselves driven directly to new york city. this would have been a disastrous thing for anybody involved in the trade financially, that is. i will explain this in just a little bit. these were the trains that we're bringing the cattle. in on a daily basis and

texas longhorn beef was never sold in delmonico restaurant. that never would have happened. it never would have had the fat, the marbling or anything else that went along with it. the longhorn at best seldom weighed over 900 pounds, and so it was a pretty small animal. and so the cuts were also leaner, even though the illinois stockmen tried to put on a little more fat and weight on them by overwintering them before putting them into the eastern markets. yes, sir. >> the trade with abilene, if i'm correct was 1867 to '71, is that correct roughly? >> '72. >> was most of those herds or which years of those herds were overwintered as a result of this conference in springfield in '68? and second, did that result in a two-phase drive where they had to drive up. we think of the drive as one where they went straight through, et cetera. >> if at all possible, they were overwintered in illinois. that's because you had better grass conditions. you had the corn, so the idea was to get them to a transfer spot like abilene and get them into the railcars and get them to illinois as quickl