208 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



mium. It is of but little account, that an animal is placed 

 upon our grounds on a show day, if we have no statement of 

 her qualities and productiveness. What we want to know, and 

 what we have a right to expect, is, experiments and observa- 

 tions, by which, upon comparison, we may determine which is 

 the best stock for our particular purpose ; which breed of cows 

 will yield the most and richest milk, produce the greatest 

 quantity of butter and cheese, give the best stock to the dairy, 

 the yoke or the stall ; in a word, be the most profitable to the 

 farmer, in whatever department of husbandry he may be en- 

 gaged. Without such information, all exhibitions are worth- 

 less, and the labor and the money which is lavished upon them 

 had better be applied to the improvement of the land and the 

 cultivation of field and orchard. 



In closing this already too extended report, the chairman 

 feels bound still to adhere to, and repeat an opinion formed 

 upon no slight personal observation and experience of his own, 

 and long since expressed, but for which no other member of the 

 committee is responsible, that the greatest improvement which 

 the native stock of our county, and perhaps of the country, has 

 ever received from importations, is in the blood of the short" 

 horn improved Durhams. For the dairy and the shambles 

 especially, as of earliest maturity and most profitable, the pre- 

 ference should be given to this cross. A fusion of the native, 

 and perhaps the Ayrshire with the Devons, and in this county, 

 to the last drop of the blood of old " Denton." 



Levi Lincoln, Chairman. 



Working Oxen. — The committee found an unusual number 

 of entries in this department — thirty-one in all — and your com- 

 mittee had no small difficulty to contend with in finally 'award- 

 ing the several premiums ; as all were of excellent quality, as 

 is usual in Worcester county, some sections of which had in 

 former times the reputation of educating their oxen better than 

 their sons. To-day we only propose speaking of the education 

 of the thirty-one yokes of oxen, as brought forward for our in- 

 spection ; and the drivers, so far as related to their aptness as 

 teamsters, as srell as manly conduct before your committee. 



The trial was had within the enclosure of the society's 

 grounds, on carts loaded with 4,000 lbs. each. The drivers 



