128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that; but generally they have been bred for the purposes of a beef 

 producing animal. That is the main object, that is their history 

 in a long succession of generations; and this has been, this is, 

 their crowning excellence, and to hope to find among the Short- 

 horns, as a breed, animals tha't develop all the milking properties 

 in the highest degree, is not to be expected. Their cream and 

 butter, os a rule, are wauting in color ; their milk, as a rule, does 

 not compare in richness with that of some of the smaller breeds ; 

 and it is only in the most luxuriant pasturage, fine level lands, 

 where they can fill themselves without the labor and difficulty of 

 climbing hills, where they can lie quietly in most luxuriant past- 

 ures that the Shorthorn lays on flesh and thrives, and there, un- 

 doubtedly, especially if beef production is the object, and in some 

 cases, 1 admit, as a butter animal, the Shorthorns and their grades 

 are desirable. But in Connecticut, there are lew sections adapted 

 to^this race, and I imagine that Maine has few sections in which 

 this would be the most desirable animal for your farmers to breed. 

 The Devons come next on my list. The value of the Devons 

 forj working oxen is admitted everywhere. Their kindness, the 

 ease with which they are broken to the yoke, their intelligence, 

 the certainty with which you can breed them, so that they will 

 be just alike, just like two peas from a pod, or more than two 

 from a pod, if 3 ? ou have more Devons, is a great point in their 

 favor among those who would breed steers. Their activity as 

 workers is unsurpassed, and in breeding for this object, and for 

 beef qualities, upon a somewhat thin soil, or hilly locations, they 

 are unsurpassed, even by the Shorthorns. The milking properties 

 of that breed have in a good degree been lost sight of, and it is an 

 exception to find a family of Devons that are great milkers. Such 

 exceptional cases are on record ; and the quality of the Devon 

 milk in all its properties, for butter, for the amount of casine or 

 curd that it contains, and sugar of milk, is admitted, I believe, to 

 be equal, if not superior, to that produced by any other breed. 

 The color communicated to the milk by a large proportion of 

 Devon animals is sufficient to give character to the milk of a cer- 

 tain locality. In my own neighborhood, from one station, we are 

 sending milk to New York ; we send, in the height of the season, 

 about one hundred cans of forty quarts each a day from that sta- 

 tion, and it is reported that our milk is of a better color than that 

 from any other station on the Housatonic railroad. We have 

 more Devon stock, more Devon blood mingled with our herds of 



