168 TALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



All breeds for permanent breeders should be thoroughbred. 

 The Shorthorn brings up the native cattle wonderfully, but 

 they should be bred all the time to a thoroughbred bull, and 

 the grades should not be bred, if it can be avoided, to any 

 other bull. This way will bring a herd up wonderfully by the 

 simple outlay for a good bull. 



With regard to color: within the bounds which mark a 

 breed, he knows no utilitarian color. The Shorthorns combine 

 red and white in all proportions ; but no other color, except 

 yellow, is admissible. Red is just now the favorite color. 

 Roan was once, and may be again. White winters and fattens 

 as well in Kentucky as any other color. Some of the finest 

 bullocks ever sent to the New York market were grazed by 

 him, and were whites. The finest and best fatted heifer he 

 ever saw was descended from the 1817 stock of Shorthorns, 

 and was white weighing over two thousand pounds ! 



Mr. Clay did not believe the doctrine that the features of the 

 first sire were impressed to some extent upon all succeeding 

 foetuses. He thought that idea had been originated by the 

 women ! Mr. Clay thought we were in the infancy of the art 

 of breeding full of uncertainty now ; yet the laws of breed 

 ing were as fixed as the laws of Physics. All we wanted was 

 knowledge. We knew no way at present of influencing the 

 sex though he thought the most vigorous animal influenced 

 the sex. He thought, if an old bull went to many cows, the 

 calves would be heifers mostly; but if a young bull went to a 

 few and rather old cows, the result would be males. We 

 needed more intelligence and more close observation. The 

 course of higher progress was in such efforts as those now here 

 making. Let our motto be Excelsior ! 



