244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



were both practicable and useful. While a third and still larger 

 section, judging', no doubt, of what science can accomidish, 

 from what they have seen quackery and empiricism do, seem to 

 hold that one man's notion about a horse is just as good as anoth- 

 er's, provided it be asserted with sufficient force. It is needless to 

 say, how inconsistent all such ideas are, and while their prevalence 

 affords proof of the want of that intelligence in the community, 

 concerning the nature and treatment of the horse, which veterinary 

 science alone can supply, it presents at the same time, the greatest 

 obstacles to its introduction. Nor is this all the evil it occasions. 

 From the same cause, any one giving his attention to the subject, 

 will daily see or hear of valuable animals being ill past chance of 

 relief, before they are suspected to be suHering, or if deemed amiss, 

 will find that they have been either neglected and uncared for, or 

 subjected to a still worse fate from the hap-hazard doctoring of 

 ignorant empirics, who are only thought wiser than their neigh- 

 bors because they pretend more ; while all the time there flourishes 

 and fattens a system of impudent, advertising quackery in horse 

 medicine, with its liniments and nostrums, acting like a charm in 

 every disease, that destroys ten for one it benefits, and picks the 

 public pocket while laughing at its simplicity. 



That such a state of things cries loudly for remedy, no one will 

 deny; and as opportunity has offered, it has been the author's 

 object, since he came to the Province, to diffuse sounder notions 

 among all with whom he has had professional intercourse. It is 

 but little, however, that one individual, acting only occasionally, 

 and in isolated cases, can accomplish, in comparison with what is 

 here needed to be done ; and as the press affords the means of 

 instructing a thousand, as easily as one, he now adopts that method 

 of address, hoping thereby to reach a number, whom distance other- 

 wise puts beyond the limit of his influence, and also to benefit some, 

 who, from prejudice, or want of better information, keep aloof from 

 the aid they could have, often till it is too late to be of use, some- 

 times altogether. 



When the author was first corresponded with about coming to 

 New Brunswick, it was held out to him as highly probable, that 

 young men from diflcrent parts of the Province would take advan- 

 tage of the o})portunity, for acquiring better instruction ; and he 

 had much hope of this as a means of making known the value of 

 the science. This hope he is grieved to say, has as yet proved an 

 illusion ; and as the next best way that occurs to him, for attaining 

 the same end, he offers a portion of that science to the public in 

 such a form, as may be taken home to tlie farm or the stable, how- 

 ever remote they be, and .there cither used for private study and 

 improvement, or kept for daily reference. In doing this, he thinks 

 he is but carrying out in a li!)(>ral spirit the views of those who in- 

 duced him to come here, and who have since so kindly patronized 

 him ; and hopes that both the object and the endeavor, will be 

 deemed worthy of public favor, however imperfectly the end may 

 be accomplished. 



It is not, however, because there are not already plenty of vete- 



