60 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



learn "that lie formed an ideal standard in his own mind and then 

 endeavored, first by a wide selection and a judicious and discrimi- 

 nating- coupling, to obtain the type desired, and then by close 

 breeding-, connected with rig;orous weeding out to perpetuate and 

 fix it. 



After him came a host of others, not all of whom concealed their 

 light beneath a bushel. By long continued and extensive obser- 

 vation, resulting in the collection of numerous facts, and by the 

 collation of these facts of nature, by scientific research and practi- 

 cal experiments, certain physiological laws have been discovered, 

 and principles of breeding have been deduced and established. It 

 is true that some of these laws are as yet hidden from us, and much 

 regarding them is but imperfectly understood. What we don't know 

 is a deal more than what we do know, but to ignore so much as 

 has been discovered and is well established, and can be learned by 

 any who care to do so, and to go on regardless of it, would indi- 

 cate a degree of wisdom in the breeder on a par with that of a 

 builder who should fasten together wood and iron just as the pieces 

 happened to come to his hand, regardless of the laws of architect- 

 ure, and expect a convenient house or a fast sailing ship to be the 

 result of his labors. 



Is not the iisual course of procedure among many farmers too 

 nearly parallel to the case supposed ? Let the ill-favored, chance- 

 bred, mongrel beasts in their barn yards testify. The truth is, and 

 it is of no use to deny or disguise the fact, the imjjrovement of do- 

 mestic animals is one of the most important and to a large extent, 

 one of the most neglected branches of rural economy. Tlie fault 

 is not that farmers do not keep stock enough, much oftener they 

 keep more tlian they can feed to the most profitable point, and 

 when a short crop of hay comes, there is serious difficulty in sup- 

 porting them, or in selling them at a paying price ; but the great 

 majority neitlier bestow proper care upon the selection of animals 

 for breeding, nor do they appreciate the dollars and cents difi'er- 

 ence between such as are profitable and such as are profitless. 

 How many will hesitate or refuse to pay a dollar for the services 

 of a good bull when some sort of a calf can be begotten for a quar- 

 ter ? and this too when one by the good male would be worth a 

 dollar more for veal and ten or twenty dollars more when grown 

 to a cow or an ox ? IIow few will hesitate or refuse to allow to a 

 butcher the cull of his calves and lambs for a few extra shillings, 

 and this when the butchers diflerence in shillings would soon, were 



