206 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



when they shake their heads. I have received a hit with the 

 end of a horn on my face, with no evil intention on the part 

 of the cow. Many times people have had their foreheads 

 hurt badly by the accidental motions of the cattle they were 

 tending. Horns are simply useless ; they are allowed to 

 exist because they are in fashion, and because we have not 

 thought to do otherwise. A polled cow can be tied in a way 

 no other cow can be. I secured the greater part of my cattle 

 with stanchions ; and even bulls can be put in stanchions. 



Mr. Smith. I would like to have Mr. Cheever state 

 whether he believes that taking the horns from Jerseys, 

 short-horns, or any other breed of cattle, will change the 

 disposition of that breed of cattle ? I don't believe it. 



Mr. Cheever. If all the dirk-knives and pistols were 

 taken out of the hands of people, would they not be more 

 peaceable than they are now ? The temptation to use a pis- 

 tol, a knife or a horn is very strong, upon the impulse of the 

 moment. You do not find stripes up and down the flanks of 

 polled cattle, or the hair gone in spots ; and it is rarely that 

 I see a herd of twenty-five or thirty cattle with horns that I 

 do not see some of them marked in that way. Polled cows 

 running with horned cows will show a different disposition 

 from the other cows in the herd, as a rule. I had one polled 

 cow that was bought as a heifer years before I began to 

 breed, and I put her in a herd of horned cattle. She was 

 pitched around and marked and scratched until she got tired 

 of it, and when she grew older and found out what she could 

 do, she learned to take the other cow^s under the shoulders, 

 and they would yield to her. She got up the courage of a 

 two-year old heifer, and with the courage of a two-year old 

 heifer she whipped the herd. She was not one of the crea- 

 tures that will leave off when they get through. She became 

 so vicious that I kept her in the barn the last year. She 

 was not one of those that had been l:)rought up among dirk- 

 knives and pistols. I had another cow, one of my own 

 breeding, — one of the largest cows I ever bred. She got to 

 be four years old and she would turn out for any calf that 

 attempted to push her away. She didn't seem to have any 

 idea of flighting or buntimz;. Althoufirh the larijest cow in the 

 herd, she was what we would call an underling. I bought a 



