LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 147 



we will get better; as long as we breed down we shall get jjoorer. When you 

 fiud such a stallion as Eclipse, for instance, he has brought to him such dams 

 as Maud S., and what is the result? On the other hand, you have an old, 

 worn out, balky, riugboued, spavined mare, who has the heaves. You don't 

 know what else to do with her on account of her worthlessness, so you conclude 

 to set her to breeding. You look around to find a stallion as worthless, if 

 possible, as she, that it may not cost anything. They are coupled together, 

 and what kind of progeny are you likely to get, as like produces like or the 

 mixed qualities of the ancestors. Then say this process is continued six to ten 

 generations, what kind of a family will you be likely to have? How many 

 Dexters, Maud S.'s, Longfellows, Harry Bassetts, Foxhalls, and Iroquois's 

 would you be likely to have by this process. "We know of no example where 

 a low bred horse has ever been able to trot and win a three in five race that 

 was trotted in 2 :30 or below. 



In two centuries, no low bred horses have ever been able to compete with the 

 high bred horse, and no lowbred has ever won the English Derby, or any great 

 event on either continent, and this is now so generally understood they do not 

 even attempt it. 



But my farmer friend says he does not want a runner, does not expect a trot- 

 ter. Let me tell you, dear sir, with the best cold-blooded mare ever born you 

 have no reason to expect a runner in the first cross, even if you breed her to the 

 highest bred and fleetest thoroughbred stallion ever foaled, but you will have 

 more than doubled the value of your colt for almost any purpose, but as we 

 said in the opening, we are not urging the use of any particular type, but 

 when we breed we should breed from the best and breed up — not down. By 

 the advantages of high breeding we shall have animals of greater longevity, 

 more beautiful, more useful, more enduring, and more valuable. Gentlemen, 

 in breeding, beware how you sow tares when you should sow wheat; for as you 

 sow, so shall you reap. 



SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



BY HON". HENRY CHAMBERLAIN. 

 [DeUvered at Berrien Institute.] 



The gentleman who was to have read a paper on this subject, having learned 

 at a late day that he could not be present at this institute, the committee in 

 charge invited me to write and read a paper. 



I was very much inclined to refuse this request, for the reason that I need 

 instruction in this branch of husbandry, and doubt my ability to impart 

 definite useful information to you. 



In many, if not most branches of industry, the persons engaged therein 

 know definitely or at least approximately the cost of each article produced. It 

 is not so with the products of our farms, our herds, or our flocks. So far as I 

 know, the most intelligent of our farmers are and, perhaps, must be satisfied 

 with a very indefinite and perhaps not even approximate knowledge of the 

 cost of his products. 



If the owner of a good farm, stock, and tools succeeds in securing the com- 



