NEAT STOCK. 179 



There are no cattle among the imported stock that have been 

 bred for the pail, and none that excel, except it be the Jerseys. 

 And the committee cannot recommend these to farmers, as 

 suitable farm stock ; they may excel for those who keep a single 

 cow, or for amateur farmers, but for all purposes as stock they 

 are inferior to all others. The fine cattle of England have been 

 bred for beef; quantity, quality, and early maturity, has been 

 their mark, consequently foreign bloods are not to be relied on 

 for great milking qualities. Exceptions there are among all 

 classes, exceptions there ever must be. It seems strange that 

 no attempt should have been made to raise up a class of pure 

 blood milkers. We know but of one in existence, that of Col. 

 Jaques, of Somerville, who, about thirty years since, undertook 

 to produce a new and distinct breed for milkers, from his famous 

 bull Coelebs, and a native cow ; how far he has succeeded we 

 have no knowledge, except from a transient view of some of 

 his stock. They were of excellent form, bone, color, and fine 

 to the hand, and of a size between the Durhams and Devons. 

 If these cattle, that are as certain to produce their like as the 

 best English bloods, are not so much esteemed as they deserve 

 to be, it must be because the Col. has not made his experiments 

 profitable to himself. The attempt to breed upon scientific prin- 

 ciples exclusively, with our common native cattle, has not been 

 made. There are said to be native cows among us descending 

 from a line of ancestry of thirty years' standing of extra milk- 

 ing qualities. If such be the fact, they form a starting point 

 for a blood stock from which we might hope for a better milking 

 breed than has yet been produced. 



Premiums for the best cow may tend to make men more wise 

 in the selection of cows, to learn the points developed in good 

 milkers, but of no great benefit, on the whole, while the great 

 mass remain of guch mixed blood as to insure a thousand poor 

 animals to one good one. The subject is copious and fruitful. 



Your committee refrain from further remarks. 



Seth Sprague, 

 Benjamin Hobart, 



Committee. 



