24 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



mal will cut on the block, and the work will permit of no inac- 

 curacy. Their judgment and the training of their mental fac- 

 ulties involve thousands and almost millions of dollars in a 

 single day. Why should not a breeder and feeder have the same 

 discriminating judgment? In other words, why is not the work 

 of breeding, feeding and selecting domestic animals more of an 

 exact science? Simply because of lack of training. To put it 

 in other words and more plainly, men fail to breed good animals 

 primarily because they do not know what they are — because they 

 have wrong conceptions and wrong ideas of standards of excel- 

 lence. A celebrated artist when asked to name the first essen- 

 tial to succesfi in his profession replied " to see right." So it is 

 in this field; no one ever succeeds without first seeing right. A 

 man can no more attain the highest excellence and skill in agri- 

 culture without a clear mental conception of his object than can 

 an artist produce a great masterpiece without a right conception 

 of what constitutes the highest art. 



During the closing days of the recent Trans-Mississippi Expo- 

 sition at Omaha, while the stock show was in progress, a very 

 successful shepherd, a man who was a real artist and a master 

 hand at his profession, showed a sheep from his father's flock 

 in England that was very much admired by all who saw it; a 

 sheep that was a marvel of excellence in all qualities that go to 

 make up a perfect sheep. "Where was that sheep bred?" in- 

 quired an interested stockman. " Ah," replied the young man, 

 " that sheep was bred in England before I was born," meaning 

 by the reply that it had taken fifty years of constant, thought- 

 ful, painstaking and intelligent work to bring that animal to its 

 -present state of perfection. 



Good stock does not come by chance nor by haphazard meth- 

 ods. During the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha, to 

 which I have referred, a students' live-stock judging contest 

 was held, open to all of the agricultural colleges of the United 

 States. There were seventeen contestants, representing five col- 

 leges. Each student was examined thoroughly on two classes 

 of hogs, two of cattle and two of sheep, and one of the exam- 



