f 



NEAT STOCK. 195 



and farmers generally have found that good liberal feeding pro- 

 duces the most milk and butter, and therefore pays best. A 

 great many men in the county who are not farmers, or who 

 make farming subsidiary to some other pursuit, keep cows. 

 These feel a laudable pride in having their animals look well — 

 and they know that cows, certainly, will not look well unless 

 they are fed well. It is true, almost without exception, that 

 cows kept by men who are not professed farmers, and who gen- 

 erally have abundant means to keep a much larger number than 

 they do, are always maintained in good condition, — for pride 

 and profit conspire together, and the patient, faithful cow, so in- 

 dispensable to our comfort, gets the benefit of the combination. 

 If the day ever arises when there are no exceptions to this rule, 

 among those who make farming the " paramount interest" — to 

 the cattle it will certainly be a day of universal thanksgiving 

 and rejoicing. 



Any increased product, therefore, is attributable to improved 

 care and feeding, rather than to any improvement in the quality 

 of the stock. 



If, then, we have made no material improvement in the milk- 

 ing properties of our cows, we have been either mistaken in the 

 direction from which improvement is to come, and have been 

 looking the wrong way, or else we have sadly abused our oppor- 

 tunities. Perhaps, to a certain extent, we have done both ; for 

 it is most true that all attempts at improvement by crossing 

 with foreign breeds, either in the county or out of it, have been 

 without system, without aim, without judgment, without even 

 the first idea of the principles which govern reproduction — if 

 not without thinking that it was dependent upon any principles. 

 The whole of it has been a mere hap-hazard run for luck, which 

 does not rise to the dignity of experiment, even, and from which 

 no benefit could be derived under circumstances the most favor- 

 able, or with means and materials best adapted to compass the 

 desired object. We maygo on headlong in this way as long as 

 we please, in the blind hope that chance will solve the mystery 

 and give us the information which we seek, and thirty years 

 hence be found precisely where we are to-day, for the solution 

 of the mystery chance can never give. 



But if good judgment in breeding had been exercised, would 

 success have followed it ? To make ourselves perfectly under- 



