LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 261 



a grade and a native in the United States is approximately the average of 

 nothing and $39.59, equals 114.79. This excess of value upon five millions of 

 cattle amounts to $73,950,000, or nearly $1.50 per capita of population in the 

 United States. Now as regards first cost of grades vs. natives, through which 

 we must reach net results : Presuming the five million cattle in either instance 

 to be composed of two, three, four, and five years old stock, we may safely 

 assume the ratio one breeding male to every two hundred cattle. This would 

 imply the previous purchase of 25,000 males, worth say $250,000; estimating 

 the cost of an equal number of natives at one-fourth this amount, or $62,500, 

 we find the first cost of our grades exceeds that of our natives by $187,500; 

 deducting this from $73,950,000, leaves $73,762,500 net excess of value in 

 favor of the grades. While this example must necessarily ignore many items 

 of fact known to exist in the rearing and marketing of our live stock, we can 

 but deduce the general conclusion, that we can no longer afford to produce 

 such stock as has for thirty years in general decorated (?) the pastures of this 

 vicinity. 



One more deduction, representing the excess of value of one grade over one 

 native, by $14.79, a sum equal to the interest on $105.63 for two years at 7 

 per cent; then assuming a native two years old to represent $40 of working 

 capital, the grade must represent $105.63 more, or $145.63 of working capital; 

 or, assuming the grade to be worth $40, then our native is worth $105.63 less, 

 or $65.63 less than nothing. 



LINE BREEDING AND THE VALUE OF PEDIGREES. 



BY A. F. WOOD. 

 [Read at Leslie Institute.] 



Mr. CHAiRMAisr, Ladies and Gentlemen : Since greater attention to live 

 stock is the first step in the improvement of farming, we must consider one 

 who does not understand the connection between the cultivation of the ground 

 and breeding, rearing, and feeding the domestic animals, to make but an 

 indifferent figure in rural affairs. 



In the breeding of cattle, I believe the Short-horn and their grades superior 

 to all other breeds for a large portion of our State. The improved Short-horn 

 implies the ability to combine the most and best quality of meat and milk on 

 what they consume, and we can obtain such by selecting from families that 

 have been bred long in a line with this in view. 



Our improved Short-horns date back about a century, and among the early 

 improvers may be mentioned Westell, Robert and Charles Colling, Mason, and 

 Thomas Booth, and a little later T. Bates, Richard and John Booth, and John 

 Stevenson were prominent breeders. In 1786, George Culley wrote: "This 

 breed, like most others, is better or worse in different districts; not so much, 

 I apprehend, from the good or bad qualities of the land, as from a want of 

 attention in the breeders." The object of the art of breeding is the improve- 

 ment of animals in those qualities that have a definite value, and while all will 

 not become experts or be equally successful in producing animals of extraor- 



