194 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Those wlio think, on general principles, that every generation 

 grows wiser than its predecessor, and that we are wiser in every 

 respect agriculturally than our fathers were, will probably deny 

 this proposition. Men who have paid extravagant prices for 

 cows, and believe that the quality depends upon the cost, will 

 dispute it. Those who have what is termed blood stock — the 

 meaning of which, it is sometimes said, farmers are slow to 

 comprehend, — and who breed it for sale at enormously high 

 prices, will dispute it. Interested individuals, in whatever way 

 they may happen so to be ; and thoughtless individuals, who 

 are always apt to take their desire to have a thing so for an 

 assurance that it is so, will dispute it. But if the cows exhib- 

 ited at our annual show are to be taken as the criterion, then 

 we have no hesitation in saying — no man can for a moment hes- 

 itate emphatically to say — that certainly no improvement has 

 been made. If the milch stock of a large majority of the farm- 

 ers of the country is to determine the question, then we have 

 made none. If the number of superior cows in any particular 

 locality, of any or all breeds, is to determine the question, then 

 we have made none. 



It is a rare thing to see a very superior cow at one of our 

 shows, — it is much rarer that tlie cows in our farmers' yards 

 will average above ordinary, — and those of the highest order of 

 the very first quality, were as frequently met with in 1825 as in 

 1855. It is undoubtedly true that the product of the cows of the 

 county, numbers being equal, is much greater now than it was 

 then. But this does not result from any improvement inherent 

 in the stock itself, but is the very pleasing consequence of a 

 wiser, more humane and more judicious mode of treatment. 

 We have probably now a hundred cows, well fed, well housed, 

 tolerably well groomed and generally well cared for, where not 

 a tithe of that number were so treated thirty years ago. The 

 reasons are obvious. 



That period of tliirty years has witnessed the birth, (infancy 

 it had none,) the fabulous growth, and the gigantic manhood 

 of that great business of the county — manufacturing, in its dif- 

 ferent varieties. Within that time our population has nearly 

 doubled, and, with the increase of population, the demand for 

 dairy products has been proportionally increased. To use a 

 common expression, the producing of milk and butter has paid, 



