NEAT STOCK. 343 



ordinary exercise of reason. Perhaps a majority of farmers may 

 not be expected to consider physiological tendencies and intrin- 

 sic qualities, but we can all follow the teachings of common 

 sense. Tlie principles which have governed the breeders of live 

 stock in England, from Bakewell to the present day, are " fine 

 forms, small bones, and a true disposition readily to take on fat, 

 which is indeed inseparable from small bones, or rather fine 

 bones, and fine forms, or true symmetry of the parts." Dur- 

 hams, Herefords and Devons have all been bred with especial 

 reference to their disposition to fatten, early maturity, weight 

 in the most valuable parts, with lightness of offal, and a form 

 indicating strength of constitution. 



Every body who has had any experience knows that such 

 qualities do not belong to animals valuable for milk-secreting 

 properties, and that cows thus formed always have small udders, 

 and that small udders always yield but a small supply of milk. 

 Adopting the principles which we have stated, English breed- 

 ers have put them into successful practice, in the first place by 

 invariably selecting those animals to breed from on both sides which 

 were possessed in the highest degree of the points desired, and 

 in the next by abundant nourishment from the earliest period of 

 the existence of the young animal until its growth is complete. 

 Climate docs much to aid man in changing the course of ani- 

 mated and sentient nature and forming it to his mind ; but 

 herbage and food, so far as the changes which we are now con- 

 sidering are concerned, will do more. On this point we shall 

 be excused for quoting an eloquent English writer of modern 

 date, whether his reasoning be altogether correct or not. " Take 

 only twin calves," says he, " give the one his mother's milk for 

 six months, and feed the other on hay-tea and linseed: the one 

 will be a large, thriving animal, the other shrunk and meagre 

 and stunted. It is the effects of its pasturage. It has not the 

 exact food calculated to develop its qualities — and it shows its 

 want — not by dying, but by overcoming all in an altered form. 

 Now take the same twins, leave one in the fertile valley of the 

 Tees and drive the other to the barren Jersey. The one has an 

 alluvial soil, deposited by the debris of a thousand generations. 

 It browses on the grass once the bed of the wide-flowing river, 

 filled up with the finest and most soluble particles of earth 

 washed out of the virgin soil before it was cultivated, mixed 



