3?4 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



cessfiil breeders of horses estimate the value of their stock almost entirely bj 

 their pedigrees. You would find that by breeding for a specific purpose the 

 dwarfed, diminutive Shetland pony can be transformed and built up into the 

 mammoth and powerful Clydesdale. 



So accurately can the thoroughbred horse be judged by his breeding that 

 the most noted and skillful turfman in America, in his countiug-room in 

 New York, will pay his thousands for the undeveloped colt in Kentucky, 

 with which to win the Derby. American dairymen and breeders of dairy 

 stock underestimate the value of this important factor in developing and 

 building up the great industry which they represent. In this respect we 

 are far behind 'the breeders of many other domestic animals. 



The domestic animal in the hands of the intelligent breeder is like the 

 potter's clay in the hands of the skilled artist. It can be moulded, shaped, 

 changed and finished according to the will and skill of the artisan. 



So marked are the influences of intelligent breeding that the will and wish 

 of the understanding breeder of to-day will be stamped in legible characters 

 upon the flocks and herds which will graze on the fields ten years hence. 



WHAT AND HOW TO FEED FOR GOOD QUALITY AND LARGE 



QUANTITY OF MILK. 



BY PROF. SAMUEL JOHNSOJSr. 

 [Read before the Dairymen's Convention at Flint, February, 1887.] 



In a recent work on '•' The Landed Interest," by Sir James Caird, author 

 of "English Agriculture," in discussing the causes that have contributed to 

 the development of English agriculture, he refers to the fact that " in the 

 last thirty years the change has not been in any considerable progress beyond 

 what was then the best ; but in a general upheaval of the poorer and the worst 

 farmers toward the higher platform then occupied by the few." He says 

 " thirty years ago probably not more than one-third of the English people con- 

 sumed animal food more than once a week, now nearly all of them eat it in 

 meat, cheese or butter once a day. This has more than doubled the average 

 consumption per head, and when the increase of population is considered, has 

 probably trebled the total consumption of animal food in the country. The 

 increased supply has come partly from our own fields, but chiefly from abroad." 

 The leap which the consumption of meat took in consequence of the general 

 rise in all branches of trade could not have been met without foreign sup- 

 plies, and these could not have been secured except by such a rise of price as 

 fully paid the risk and cost of transport. In this way such an impetus was 

 given to the breeding and growing of stock in the United Kingdom that in 

 thirty years its capital value had increased from £146,000,000 to £260,000,- 

 000 sterling, or 11,300,000,000, an increase of £114,000,000, or $570,000,000. 

 Bear in mind, too, that while England has thus developed her stock interests 

 to a degree and with a success that has encouraged this business wherever 

 stock can be profitably raised in the world, her lands have gradually improved 

 and reached a state of fertility never before realized, so that in the last half 



