112 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



NEAT-CATTLE. 

 FRANKLIN. 



[From the Report of the Committee.] 



" The steer, the heifer, and the calf 

 Are all called neaf. "—Shakspeaee. 



The old Saxon word from which we derive our " neat " 

 means desirable, useful, and perhaps desirable because so use- 

 ful, and, so applied to our bovine animals, is certainly most 

 appropriate ; for we have no domestic animals so indispensa- 

 bly desirable, and completely useful from hoof to horn, from 

 hide to heart, and from early life to and after death, as neat- 

 stock. 



The trustees, possessed with a commendable spirit of econ- 

 omy, in accord with the times, and in keeping with the 

 finances of the society, in cutting the premium list, omitted 

 altogether certain breeds heretofore classed on an equality 

 with the popular and fashionable Short-horn and Jersey. The 

 position taken was, that so few of the rejected breeds were 

 owned within the society, that competition was impracticable. 

 This opens the question as to the real object and purpose of 

 an agricultural society and its exhibitions, — whether its 

 premiums should be offered exclusively for what there is, or 

 sometimes for what there oi((/ht to be; that is, whether the so- 

 ciety as such should not keep in advance of its members, and 

 seek to promote the introduction of other, and, for local pur- 

 poses, better breeds of animal and vegetable life. Of course, 

 if, in the judgment of the trustees, the Short- horn and the 

 Jersey fill the bill for every locality and every farmer within 

 the society, then no other breed should be sought, encouraged, 

 or tolerated. But if, to any considerable portion of the mem- 

 bership, the value of milk is determined by the quart-measure 

 instead of the lactometer, or their grazing-lands are of such 

 a character that their herds have literally to toil for a living. 



