102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



special regard will be had to animals of certain specific breeds, 

 that have their pedigrees well authenticated. 



It is unnecessary, I think, for me to allude to the matter 01 

 feeding. I hope that the discussion upon the question of breed- 

 ing will be continued, and that the farmers present will give 

 their experience in these matters. So far as the business of 

 feeding is concerned, it naturally belongs to the business of 

 farming, just exactly as much as the manuring of land belongs 

 to the raising of a crop. Every farmer knows perfectly well 

 that it is good hay, good pasturage, good roots and good grain, 

 that make the animal ; and the most judicious and economical 

 modes of introducing that nutrition into the stomachs of your 

 various animals have been so often discussed, and are so well 

 understood by most farmers, that I have no desire to enter upon 

 it here. 



Professor Agassiz. There is one point in the selection of 

 breeding animals which has not been touched upon, which I 

 believe is of great consequence, and that is color. The color of 

 an animal is always associated with certain definite qualities ; 

 and I should assume, from what I know of the lower classes of 

 mammalia, that the rule would obtain also among the higher 

 ones, or among those which are of higher value on the farm. 

 For instance, animals that are entirely white have uniformly 

 weak eyes — bad sight ; at least, that is the case among rabbits. 

 All those that are purely white have such weak eyes that they 

 are almost blind. I suppose that is an indication that we must 

 avoid a light color. It is a kind of bleaching of those darker 

 tints which are connected with the qualities of the blood, and I 

 think, therefore, indicates a certain feebleness of the system, 

 which it is not desirable to propagate. I should like to know 

 the experience of farmers in regard to white cattle, white bulls, 

 and the like, and whether they have similar peculiarities of 

 constitution to those that I have noticed among rabbits. 



Then, again, a very dark color — perfect black, for instance — 

 indicates a predisposition towards another kind of indisposition, 

 which is well known among those interested in the study of 

 disease as amaurosis ; and that kind of indisposition is certainly 

 also noticeable among black rabbits. How is it with thoroughly 

 black horses which have very dark eyes ? I do not know enough 

 of that description of cattle to have a definite opinion, but I 



