LECTURES AND ESSAYS EEAD AT INSTITUTES. 271 



sive generations, would not be affected by inoculation with strong virus taken 

 from diseased sheep. The fact was substantiated by Pasteur, through the 

 patronage of one of the Provincial Agricultural Societies of France, which 

 deemed it expedient that these facts should be demonstrated publicly on a 

 large scale. A farm and a flock of fifty sheep were placed at his disposal ; 

 twenty- five of these were inoculated (or vaccinated, is the term he uses) on the 

 3d of May last, and distinguished by ear marks, the operation repeated on the 

 same sheep on the 17th of the same month. The animals all passed through 

 a slight indisposition, but at the end of the month none of them were found 

 to have lost in flesh or liveliness. On the 31st of that month, all the fifty 

 sheep, without distinction, were inoculated with the strongest charbon virus, 

 and M. Pasteur predicted that on the following day the twenty-five sheep 

 inoculated for the first time would all be dead, while those protected by 

 vaccination with the modified virus would be perfectly free from even slight 

 indisposition. A large assemblage of distinguished persons having met at the 

 field June 1, in the afternoon, the result was found to be exactly in accord- 

 ance with M. Pasteur's prediction; at two o'clock, twenty-three of the 

 unprotected sheep were dead, and tlie other two died within two hours after; 

 but the twenty-five vaccinated sheep were all in a perfectly good condition. In 

 these experiments we have the fact demonstrated that we can cope success- 

 fully with these epidemic diseases, if prepared for them. The swine plague 

 and cattle plague are robbed of half their terrors, if we can resist them in this 

 way. 



Ladies and gentlemen, this is science. And what does it teach? That we 

 must employ medical agents to antidote and cure diseases in sick subjects, 

 that will produce a disease similar in character when given in health. Science 

 tells us so ; and a grain of science is worth all the guess work in the world. 



STOCK BKEEDING. 



BY I. H. BUTTERFIELD, JR. 

 [Read at the Jeddo Institute.] 



The following is the paper on ''Stock Breeding," read at the Farmers' 

 Institute at Jeddo, by I. H. Butterfield, jr., of Port Huron : 



Stock breeding is a branch of farm husbandry which is conducted in a 

 measure as a necessity for the farmer himself. He needs his horses for work, 

 his cattle for milk, and beef for his own use, pigs for his meat, and sheep for 

 meat and clothing. It is but a few years since the farmer grew and prepared 

 for use nearly all the products obtained from animals. Now the division of 

 labor does not require so much of the farmer in this line, but he needs the 

 animals and the products just as much. Another reason for breeding stock is 

 the profit. As long as people live, so long will they need meat for food, wool 

 for clothing and all the other articles of use belonging to the animal creation; 

 and therefore the demand will continue. Railroads cheapen and facilitate 

 transportation, but they do not take the place of horses; indeed, they increase 

 the work for teams rather than diminish it. There is very little waste of 



