Bulls 179 



man of genius, and this is corroborated by his 

 absence in the front rank of officials, who get there 

 by the German gift to appropriate other men's 

 ideas rather than discover any of their own. Like 

 other public institutions, the bull is potential in 

 the future of Ireland, good or bad, but most of us 

 persist in preferring the nondescript, even at the 

 same cost. 



There are three kinds of farmers : (i) those who 

 cannot see, and may have their eyes mercifully 

 opened for them some day ; (2) those who think 

 they can see, and must remain permanently blind ; 

 and (3) those who can see and know it. I know 

 men who have kept bulls for twenty years, have 

 never known the breeding of one of them, and have 

 never bred a good cow of their own, even by 

 accident. In the case of these, the factor of risk 

 is eliminated in the other way, for uniform badness. 



Breeding implies a very wonderful power for 

 improvement vested in us free of charge. The 

 means are in our hands for a transformation, 

 complete and profitable. By taking advantage of 

 the opportunity, I can, and I do, have about .5 

 in each cow, as compared with the careless, apart 

 from pedigree values, and assuming the same scale 

 of cost in consumption. The neglect, however, 

 is but part of the larger problem : the Irish have 

 not yet come to see the vital value of acting on 

 environment for its reaction on themselves. They 

 are taught rather to assume that, in the nature of 

 things, environment is a matter permanently out 

 of their power, dependent on something for ever 



