STUDY THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 2T 



sympathy with him enough to know what his capacity for food 

 is, will know when he is feeding him to advantage, and putting 

 money into his own pocket. 



Now, to manage all these matters carefully which I have has- 

 tily gone over, it seems to me that we require, in this country, 

 a more accurate and careful study of the animal kingdom than 

 we have been accustomed to. I know there are men in New 

 England — I see them here in this room — on whose judgment in 

 the selection of animals I should rely implicitly. I should have 

 no question about it — not the slightest. But how many men 

 there are in this State and in other States raising herds who 

 know nothing about it ? You put them into a herd and they 

 look on in a sort of wholesale admiration. If the cattle are 

 colored well, they admire them ; and if they are big enough 

 they admire them ; the bigger they are the better they like 

 them. If they are handsome they like them. But how few 

 men there are who have a careful, accurate, discriminate 

 judgment — who will go along behind your cattle, put their 

 hands on them, and say, " That animal feeds well — that does 

 not ; that is intended for a good purpose — that for a bad one." 

 Now we have got to learn that in some way, or our young men 

 cannot run their farms to a profit. I know some young men 

 who can do it — who have learned the rules by which they can 

 do it — on their fathers' farms ; but we have not brought our 

 agricultural education to that high standard which will enable 

 every man, and especially every young man, to exercise this 

 discriminating judgment. I met young men in England who 

 carried on their farms to a profit ; but they had evidently been 

 schooled with the utmost care in regard to all these points. 



Now it seems to me that one of the most important branches 

 of education which we have before us, is that kind of education 

 which will enable a man to judge well of the animal kingdom ; 

 to judge well of the cattle he is to have on his farm ; to judge 

 well of his herds — how to breed them and feed them ; to judge 

 well how to deal with even the vermin on his farm — the canker- 

 worms, the caterpillars, rats and mice — the whole animal 

 kingdom. It does seem to me, that one of the most important 

 branches of all agricultural education is a thorough knowledge 

 of the animal economy ; in other words, of the natural history 

 of the farm ; that sort of knowledge which will make a man 



