74 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tinct from undue forcing or pampering. This process may produce 

 wonderful animals to look at, but neither useful nor profitable ones, 

 and there is danger of thus producing a most undesirable variation, 

 for, as in plants, we find that forcing, pampering, high culture or 

 whatever else it may be called, may be carried so far as to result 

 in the production of double flowers, (an unnatural development,) 

 and these accompanied with greater or less inability to perfect 

 seed, so in animals, the same process may be carried far enough 

 to produce sterility. Instances are not wanting, and particularly 

 among the more recent improved Short-horns, of impotency among 

 the males and of barrenness in the females, and in some cases where 

 they have borne calves they have failed to secrete milk for their 

 nourishment.* Impotency in bulls of varioiis breeds has not un- 

 frequently occurred from too high feeding, and especially if con- 

 nected with lack of sufficient exercise.'\ 



Habit has a decided influence towards inducing variation. As 

 the blacksmith's right arm becomes more muscular from the habit 

 of exercise induced by his vocation, so we find in domestic ani- 

 mals that use, or the demand created by habit, is met by a devel- 

 opment or change in the organization adapted to the requirement. 

 For instance, with cows in a state of nature or where required only 

 to suckle their young, the supply of milk is barely fitted to the 

 requirement. If more is desired, and if the milk be drawn com- 

 pletely and regularly, the yield is increased and continued longer. 

 By keeping up the demand there is induced in the next generation 

 a greater development of the secreting organs, and more milk is 

 given. By continuing the practice, by furnishing the needful con- 

 ditions of suitable food, &c., and by selecting in each generation 

 those animals showing the greatest tendency towards milk, a breed 

 specially adapted for the dairy may be established. It is just by 

 this mode that the Ayrshires have, in the past eighty or a hundred 

 years, been brought to be what they are, a breed giving more good 

 milk upon a given quantity of food than any other. 



It is because the English breedei's of modern Short-horns alto- 

 gether prefer beefmaking to milk-giving properties that thej' have 

 constantly fostered variation in favor of the one at the expense of 



* See Rowley's Prize Report on Farming in Derbyshire, in Journal of Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society, Vol. 14. 



t A working bull, thouirli perhaps not so pleasing to the eye as a fat one, (for fat 

 Bometimcs covers a ii»ultitu<le of doR'cts,) is a surer stock-getter; and his progeny 

 IB more likely to inherit full health and vigor. 



