94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



zation into degradation is one of the most astonishing facts in 

 all human history ; for it is an undoubted fact that the Hottentot 

 in his natural condition, the American Indian in his natural 

 condition, is better, as a type of man, than some of the fallen 

 races of men, who have not kept themselves up to the standard 

 of morality, intelligence and social and civil elevation. Now, 

 the same rule that applies to man, applies to animals with yet 

 greater force. Man has a defiant and powerful intellect which 

 will enable him to resist outward circumstances. There is no 

 question about it. Man is not a mere machine alone. He 

 defies disease ; he sustains and supports his life ; he keeps him- 

 self in good physical condition, often, by the defiant powers of 

 his will or his intellect alone, so that the old saying of an able 

 man that he had no time to be sick, is perfectly and literally 

 true. Animals have nothing of this kind to help them through 

 their trials — nothing. They grow upon the land the servants of 

 man, and under his hand are as plastic, almost, as clay in the 

 hands of the potter ; and let no man suppose that he can subject 

 the sensitive and carefully bred animals upon his farm to bad 

 treatment and bad food, and have a race which will compensate 

 him for breeding, any more than you could blow up the schools, 

 churches, bibles and good government among any people, and 

 expect them to maintain themselves in their position as part of 

 the human family. It is impossible. All the animals upon the 

 farm, governed as they are entirely by their instincts, guided as 

 they continually are by the superior ability of man, wholly sub- 

 servient to him, dependent entirely upon him for all they eat 

 and all they drink, and for their daily comfort and condition — 

 these animals require all the kindness and care and regularity of 

 feeding that can possibly be bestowed upon them ; and when 

 they receive that, if they have been bred in accordance with 

 those rules which should guide an intelligent farmer in breeding, 

 they will always carry the marks of that kind treatment upon 

 them, from the expression of their countenances to the graceful 

 hanging of their tails. From one end to the other, that elegant, 

 fair, graceful, good bearing, which an animal has that is taken 

 care of by a kind-hearted and intelligent man, tells the whole 

 story of the way in which man can elevate the whole animal 

 kingdom up to his uses and to his wants. I say, therefore, let 

 no man expect that he can play the brute among his animals, 



