No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 323 



We must learn to exercise the power of selection, as you have 

 heard in the lectures of yesterday afternoon and evening, and like- 

 wise this morning. It is necessary even for the purpose of growing 

 plants and corn crops, and as you have learned, it is a fact that we 

 are commencing to breed corn, a thing that was not known of a 

 few years ago; and when one turns his eye back to California and 

 sees the work that Burbank has done with the wild cactus, for it is 

 said that he has turned that into a fruit to-day, not only for man but 

 for animals. It is wonderful what the human mind can do when it 

 simply sits quietly down and takes up the laws of God, and studies 

 them and follows out their teachings. 



The work which Burbank has done is remarkable in every respect, 

 and it seems that when we are down to the lower forms of life, we 

 can handle them best, but that don't argue that we can't handle the 

 higher forms. We will continue to go higher in our knowledge of 

 all the laws of God. We will not stop simply with the plants that 

 Burbank is handling, but we will push on; we are commencing to 

 handle the animals to-day. 



This subject appeals practically to me as a dairyman; it would be 

 impossible for a man to succeed in the dairy business unless careful 

 in the selection of his animals. You will never be able to attain to 

 any real growth or progress without cultivating and developing your 

 knowledge and your eye most carefully along the lines of improve- 

 ment in the selection of animals, and then comes the question of 

 care and feeding. I am not surprised that people quit breeding cat- 

 tle; not at all. Could you take a soil deficient in potash and nitrogen 

 and grow an animal as vigorous as the one that starts on the prairie? 

 The cattle business is a wonderful business in the West. In those 

 native soils that have never been touched with the plow, just touch 

 them with the plow, and you soon see the cattle range disappear; 

 there are not the elements in the soil to grow the bones desired in 

 these animals. We speak to-day of knowing all these things because 

 they have been tried. When I saw Sexton's big steer, the first time 

 I saw it, I said, "Was this raised on this Montgomery farm?" He 

 said, "You well know you could never start a steer like this on these 

 wornout soils of Pennsylvania;" and he commenced to tell me how 

 the animal was started on a prairie in the West. 



These general laws have driven us to study and to investigate more 

 closely into the conditions necessary for success in the dairy busi- 

 ness, have taught us to observe the form and the conformation of the 

 animal of which Dr. Pearson spoke last night. They are so neces- 

 sary. Why? Because we believe that inward qualities are ex- 

 pressed in outward signs. Let a lady go into Wanamaker's store in 

 Philadelphia to buy a garment. She judges by the texture and ap- 

 pearance; looks most carefully at it to find out how it is woven, and 



