INTRODUCTION, XXV 
tions more immediately within the views of a Society 
chiefly agricultural.: 
A principal obje&t which has continued to ¢gngage the 
Society’s attention, has been the important one of improv- 
ing the general fkill in ve flock. his is an object con- 
fefledly of great national’ confequence. And it cannot but 
afford much pleafure, and a moft favourable prefage of 
fuccefs, to fee men of the firft rank and influence turning 
their attention from the comparatively-barren amufements 
of the turf and of the chace, from unprofitable horfes and 
dogs, to thofe animals deftined for the aid of manufactures 
and the food of man. Of-fuch men this Society may boaft 
a confiderable acquifition of numbers. It is now*become 
a great rational queftion, bat race of neat cattle, fheep, and 
even fwine, are to be confidered, or by what degrees of admixe 
ture they may be made, the moft profitable for a general fupply of . 
animal food? ‘This queftion proceeds on a fippofition, 
“now extenfively received as -a fact, that it is praéticable to 
increafe, in a confiderable degree within the year, (and 
without materially leffening the quantity of grain for fale) 
the quantity of animal food, heretofore produced on the 
fame land, and that food of better quality; or, in other 
words, more valuaple, by \effening the coarfer, and increafing 
the finer and more profitable, parts of the animals; alfo by 
felection and admixture in breeding, to increafe the difpofi- 
tion to fpeedy fattening, and a fpeedy accretion of flefh and 
fat on thofe parts which are the moft valuable for food, Ly 
the pound weight. ‘The effect of thefe purfuits, it is evident, 
mutt be placed to the fcore of benevolence, in a confiderable 
degree, inafmuch as it goes to promote the means of keep- 
ing down the price’ of animal food, and affording a better 
chance to the labouring claffes of getting a little more nu-’ 
tritious meat, than they could be likely to do were fuch 
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