LECTURES AXD ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 351 



farmer may smile — yes, almost bid defiance to drouth or wet, and will, with no 

 other effort, triumph in a great measure over insect pests, for the crops will 

 grow so strong and luxuriant that these cannot injure them. 



Another method and evidence of progress is the increase and dissemination 

 of improved stock. This, until within a few years, has been slow, partly from 

 lack of capital to purchase ; more generally f ron;i a disposition to stick to the 

 old ways. If he who makes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew 

 before is a public benefactor, so, then, is he who grows a double quantity of 

 meat or wool from the same source from which one portion has heretofore 

 been obtained. Farmers have been slow to perceive that it was more profitable 

 to keep the best stock. They considered them a luxury that might be indulged 

 in by those who had money, but were not profitable for general use. Before 

 the farms were improved they were in a measure right. There is but little 

 room for choice stock until the farms are ready to receive them. Improved 

 stock follows, not precedes improved farming; indeed, it is hardly possible to 

 keep them without it. The improved farm must come first, but the two work 

 admirably together. The farmer who introduces choice stock into a neighbor- 

 hood or township must expect for a long time to be a kind of missionary in 

 stock raising, giving to the public more than he receives. Many of the men 

 who were pioneers in improved stock in their localities can understand and 

 appreciate what this means. Choice stock breeding and feeding does not 

 belong to careless ways and barren fields, and while it follows improved agri- 

 culture, it is at the same time great evidence of progress. It requires skill 

 and untiring attention. There is still much to learn in this branch. Already 

 has too much stock-breeding been carried on from an esthetic point; at least I 

 will call it by that name. Beauty before use will not do for stock that is 

 intended to help produce the income from the farm — true progress in stock 

 indicates value. Many have been induced to buy improved stock simply 

 because they were handsome in form, and have bred them solely for beauty of 

 outline without any thought of making them more valuable, or with the inten- 

 tion of producing more beef, or milk, or wool, or weight for food consumed 

 than was obtained from the old stock; and in too many instances the useful 

 qualities have been entirely left out, and the feeling shared by the masses that 

 good stock was not really more profitable has proved too true. We have here- 

 tofore been behind the farmers of Europe in this respect. They have kept 

 improved stock because they were obliged to do so to pay their rents and 

 expenses. It is fortunate, however, that usefulness and profitableness are not 

 inconsistent with beauty of form. This is well, for the progressive farmer 

 will demand that stock have some qualities which merely gratify the eye, and 

 whicli he could not sacrifice even to utility. I must give the American stock- 

 breeder credit for sticking to his point in some instances till he established 

 permanent improvement in a breed. He has changed the old Spanish into 

 the improved American Merino, the best specimen of a fine wool-growing 

 sheep in the world. He has absolutely made the now standard trotter the 

 most speedy and enduring of his kind, and in some classes of swine and fowls 

 has established an almost perfect and permanent standard. 



But the handsomest type of the Merino should be that which gives largest 

 fleece of choice wool from the same size, combined with vitality and vigor. 

 You cannot sacrifice fineness, or length, or evenness, to a fancy wrinkle, but if 

 you can keep all these and still obtain tlie wrinkle so much the better. The 

 beef-producing breeds of cattle must represent the greatest weight of the best 

 meat in the shortest time and on the least food, and all this not incompatible 



