232 Missou7'i Agricultural Report. 



duced the first breeding. All the operations of nature are in the 

 shape of compromises, and so are all changes of grade in our cat- 

 tle. You can not produce a giant from a pigmy. You must do it 

 by degrees. In breeding cattle this is a slow process ; you must add 

 here a little and there a little. You must refine and build up, and 

 gradually improve those points that are wealc. 



Now, in doing this we have more or less to do with pedigrees. 

 You may ask, what do I get out of looking at a long list of names ; 

 what does that mean to me? By so doing you will be able to find 

 out the peculiar characteristics of each individual in that pedi- 

 gree. Of course, it is very difficult for anybody, by studying a 

 pedigree, to find out from his own observation, or from men who 

 have seen the animals, the characteristics of more than a very few 

 top crosses. By history you may find out about the peculiarities of 

 some of the older sires, but all that should be threshed out and 

 carefully noted. Then you should arrive at a sensible conclusion as 

 to what type of animals compose that pedigree, and then you can 

 judge with reasonable certainty what you are doing. 



But mere pedigree without more means nothing. A scrub 

 has a pedigree, an unwritten pedigree; it has ancestors just like 

 any other animal. But it has ancestors that have not possessed 

 qualities worthy of record. So we see we must appreciate pedigree 

 in the proper way. I do not like to see this disposition to talk 

 about closing the herd books. We must have herd books. It is 

 the compass by which the breeder is guided upon an otherwise un- 

 certain sea. But the servile worship of pedigree is as dangerous 

 as anything that can possibly be conceived. It is above all things 

 to be avoided. We find the same thing — ^this servile worship — in 

 love, in religion, and in politics. Men and women love often not 

 wisely, but too well. We find men who become so wrapped up in 

 religion that they have no tolerance whatever. If Methodists they 

 will not speak to Baptists ; if Baptists they will not speak to Meth- 

 odists; if Protestants they will not recognize Catholics, and if 

 Catholics they will not recognize Protestants. We find Democrats 

 who pronounce curses against the Republicans, and we find Re- 

 publicans who declare bloody warfare against the Democrats. 

 (Applause.) Now, all these things are good. They are all neces- 

 sary. We must have parties in political work; we must have 

 creeds in our religious work. For somehow or other, we do not all 

 like to travel in the same narrow road, however even and smooth. 

 But we do not want to all try to become masters and to forget our 

 reason in all these things, and this is true of breeders. 



