100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



I think that the most admirable sight in the world, next to that 

 of a general leading his army to battle, is that of one breeder 

 whom I can select in New England, who has raised a breed of 

 animals from a low stage to a high one. His flocks know him 

 as their protector and benefactor ; and when he goes in among 

 them with his long white wand, all he has to do is to indicate 

 by that wand to a particular sheep that she is wanted, and she 

 obeys. There is no confusion ; there is no trouble. It is like a 

 school under the control of a humane teacher, who does not 

 whip his boys nor his girls either, and testifies to the influence 

 which the character of a man has over all that comes beneath 

 his rule. If you want to see a sight which will impress you, 

 and teach you what you may be yourselves, as controllers of the 

 animal kingdom, go with me into the sheep-pens of Edward 

 Hammond, of Vermont, and there you will see what I have 

 described. I have never seen anything finer, more beautiful, 

 more admirable, more significant, of the power of the human 

 race over the animal kingdom than what I have seen there. 

 Now, I say that we, as intelligent farmers — not prairie farmers, 

 not farmers chasing our cattle over the pampas armed with 

 spears and the lasso, but men who have subdued the animal 

 kingdom, and have at last brought the mind and will of the 

 animals (or propose to do so) under our own control — as men 

 engaged in this business, I say, we are bound, if we expect to 

 be good breeders of cattle, to preserve our equanimity among 

 our flocks and herds ; and if we do, they will manifest the same 

 temper in all their dealings with us. 



Professor Agassiz alluded to the effect of the first impregna- 

 tion upon female animals. I was glad to hear him speak of 

 that, and I hope that, as long as he is a member of the Board, 

 or in any capacity a teacher of the farmers of New England, he 

 will continue to reiterate it. It is the prime and fundamental 

 rule of breeding, that the seed which you are to plant, for the 

 purpose of bringing forth certain fruit, should be planted upon a 

 virgin soil ; not upon a soil that has previously been contami- 

 nated by foul seed of any description. Every man who has 

 observed his flocks and herds, well knows that the influence, 

 whether it is a physical or a moral influence, of a low-bred male 

 used for the impregnation of a female of good blood, and kept 

 for certain breeding purposes, is always disastrous, and cannot 



