198 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



PLYMOUTH. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



All who have valuable dairy stock owe it to the agricultural 

 community, at least to exhibit it at our fairs and to make such 

 trials as shall fully test its distinguishing properties. The 

 result of such information would tend to raise the standard of 

 what should constitute a good milch cow. Our aim ought to be 

 to procure the very best. We are satisfied that the hap-hazard 

 purchase from droves is not the way to replenish our dairy stock, 

 although this is the practice in our county to a great extent. 

 If occasionally we should succeed in obtaining a good cow, the ^ 

 calves of such, according to the careless management in these 

 matters, may be good or otherwise ; but supposing they should 

 prove well, no confidence can be placed in their perpetuation of 

 good qualities, without a careful selection on both sides, and 

 crossing for a series of years, with a view to particular improve- 

 ment. 



Under such practice we probably should reverse the old 

 proverb, " that a good cow may have a bad calf." 



We adopt as the best words we can use upon this subject, the 

 following from the pen of Mr. Goodale, Secretary of the Maine 

 Board of Agriculture. We ask our brother farmers to weigh 

 them well ; criticise, reflect, subtract what they may, they will 

 find them more valuable than silver and gold. We wish every 

 farmer in the county would consider them : — 



" By long-continued and extensive observation, resulting in- 

 the collection of numerous facts, and by the collation of these 

 facts of nature, by scientific research and practical experiments, 

 certain physiological laws have been discovered, and principles 

 of breeding have been deduced and established. It is true that 

 some of these laws are as yet hidden from us, and much regarding 

 them is but imperfectly understood. What we do not know 

 is a deal more than what we do know ; but to ignore so 

 much as has been discovered, and is well established, and can 

 be learned by any who care to do so, and to go on fegardless 

 of it, would indicate a degree of wisdom in the breeder, on a 

 par with that of a builder who should fasten together wood and 

 iron just as the pieces happened to come to his hand, regardless 



