214 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



advance ^vas made or attempted until within a very few hundred years; 

 although admirers of some of the improved breeds, thinking there is much 

 merit in age of descent (notably the llolstein or Dutch breed), claim a nearly 

 pure descent for 2,000 years, which, if they mean in anything like their 

 improved condition of the present, is absurd and without good foundation, for 

 reasons which I shall give that thoroughly convince me that their ground is 

 untenable. 



The wild herds on the western continent, sach as we formerly found on the 

 plains of Texas and Lower California, certainly could not have been a very 

 great improvement over the pair that came out from Noali's ark; if they had 

 the form of cattle, unless it be that their horns had grown since then, other- 

 wise there had been room for little else in the floating casket which contained 

 the animal relics of the world. 



The improvement of stock indicates higher civilization. This is particularly 

 true as to cattle and the small animals. The half civilized Arab has been 

 given great credit for having a noted breed of horses, yet I believe much of 

 this is mere sentimentalism, aided by the mytliological tales of travelers, and 

 though there are some particles of truth in the chiims made, the imagination 

 has drawn pictures far beyond the facts, and this I could show to you were it 

 not digressing from my subject. 



No class of stock has been greatly improved, nor come to any perfection, 

 except as it followed improved methods of agriculture. Even among more 

 civilized nations there has never been rest and quiet for a time long enough to 

 accomplish any great change, provided it were attempted. The primitive 

 methods do not provide food sufficient and regular' enough to sustain the 

 improved conditions of animal life, any more than the rude fare and habits of 

 uncivilized life conduce to the growth of intellect and morals in man. The 

 above reasons are sufficient to convince me that the claims to any great age for 

 any improved breed of cattle are fabulous, because impossible under existing 

 circumstances. It is true that the cattle on our western plains are being very 

 much improved, and the long-horned Texan will soon be of the past, but this 

 is being done by crossing with breeds already improved, which are bred in a 

 section of the country where lands are more highly improved, and will con- 

 tinue to be kept up in the same way. Improvement in the cultivation of the 

 soil must come before any great change can be made for the better with our 

 cattle. 



Ami with cultivated farms, *' intensive" farming will produce the greatest 

 improvement in cattle as in all stock. This is what has brought to such per- 

 fection the wonderful cattle, sheep and swine of England, the rich milk of 

 the Jerseys, and the wonderful yields of the Holstein or Dutch cows. The 

 Merino sheep in Spain had been much improved even under the pastoral 

 methods of the shepherds of Spain in her palmiest days, but how were they 

 then or even now, M'ith their fleeces of three and four pounds, compared to the 

 great French Merino, descended from them, but bred under improved agricult- 

 ure, with their fleeces of beautiful dry wool weighing twenty pounds and 

 upward, and a weight of body sometimes reaching 300 pounds; or our own 

 American Merino, also descended from the Spanish flocks, so improved under 

 American agriculture that they now yield the largest fleeces and the finest 

 wool known to the world. Intensive agriculture improves cattle because 

 greater intelligence is brought into the field, greater skill is at hand, greater 

 profits promised, and there is more pride in the care and cultivation of that 



