Q BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 



position, or give those who may view it from an opposite stand- 

 point, some ground for an argument. 



It is a well established fact in physiology, that childi-en from 

 parents of middle age are more hardy, less liable to disease, and 

 longer-lived than those from very young or very aged parents. 

 Children from parents who are past the prime of life, come to 

 maturity much earlier and fail much sooner than others ; while 

 those from very young parents are later in coming to maturity, 

 and consequently more subject to fatal disease, by being children 

 much longer. 



Human growth, according to the best authority, ceases between 

 the ages of twenty and twenty-five ; in very warm regions, how- 

 ever, where development and decay are universally allowed to be 

 more rapid, the inhabitants come to maturity much earlier. A 

 superior order of beings can only be produced by selections and 

 exclusions similar to those employed in rearing the inferior orders. 



We may rejoice in a Fulton, a Franklin, or a Webster, occasion- 

 ally, the parents of such being absolutely ignorant of the first 

 principles of physiology ; but in the breeders' language, such 

 were in possession of the prerequisites. In the first place, they 

 had not entered the marriage relationship prior to the age of 

 reason ; the parents were full grown men and women, not boys 

 and girls ; they possessed a sound mind and healthy constitution, 

 free from hereditary defects of mind and body, which stunted 

 growth, aided by artificial modes of life, are almost sure to entail. 

 One safeguard, therefore, against stunted growth or ill health, is 

 to avoid a too early use of the reproductive functions ; and herein 

 we are not safe, unless proper selections have been made, and 

 faulty animals or persons rejected. 



Until within a few years, a wise and salutary law was in oper- 

 ation in the British Isles, which interdicted marriage until the 

 candidates had arrived at the age of twenty-one. That law has 

 been set aside, and consequently the mass of the population of the 

 present day will not bear comparison with that of the past. Be- 

 lieving that the same laws that govern the human race are applied 

 thruughout animated nature, these facts established by older and 

 wiser heads than mine, are a foundation upon which to build a per- 

 manent superstructure for the almost infallible guide for all farmers 

 and stock-breeders of the present day. 



It appears from many ancient writings, that in "olden time" 

 they were as conversant witli many of these physiological facts as 



