86 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



animal, be of a good and desirable stock, of such stock as you 

 would like to have in the progeny of your breeding animals. 

 I have been told that mares which have been copulated with 

 donkeys at first, never breed afterwards good colts ; that there 

 is always something of the mule coming from the progeny of a 

 mare that has had at first a donkey, and not a stallion. 



Now, without going on to the other topics td which I would 

 call your attention afterwards, I think we may limit ourselves 

 at present to the subject of fecundation — to the effects of fecun- 

 dation and the character of fecundation — and then pass to the 

 consideration of the phenomena of sterility and to the effects of 

 sterility. In our way of breeding, when we castrate so large a 

 number of males, and when we keep so large a number of 

 females which are never allowed to breed, what have we, in 

 reality ? What is the stock of horses with us ? Castrated 

 males and non-producing females. What is the character of our 

 horse stock ? I ask you, gentlemen, whether the vices of your 

 horses are not in great measure to be ascribed to that fact ? 

 I do not know. It is for you to experiment upon. But it is a 

 fact, that you raise, as the stock of horses to be used by the com- 

 munity, castrated males and unfertile females ; and that fact is 

 to be looked into, and it is to be considered whether that is 

 as it should be and the best that can be. 



Mr. Perkins. There are two other points that might be con- 

 sidered in this connection. One is, in what way shall we be 

 most likely to fix the sex of the offspring ? I will give a little 

 of my experience and of my observation. In one case I took 

 four ewes some twenty-five miles to a French merino buck, 

 hoping I should get one or two lambs fit to use. The buck was 

 old and dull, and when my ewes came in in the spring, I got 

 four ewe lambs and no bucks. The ewes were fleshy and vigor- 

 ous. Mr. Birnie, of Springfield, had a four-year old Ayrshire 

 bull, which had become dull and stupid, and his calves were 

 almost universally heifer calves. The bull became so stupid 

 that he was fatted and butchered, and Mr. Birnie used a young 

 and vigorous yearling bull, lie was after heifer calves, but to 

 his surprise he found his calves were all bull calves. The bull 

 was a vigorous, active bull, and did not need any coaxing or 

 delay. I mention these facts with reference to the point of 

 fixing the sex. 



