50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



various animals, and my occupation for forty years has been 

 that of a breeder, and I have not seen a trace of it. I am 

 confident tliat there is no person in this county capable of 

 speaking more confidently or truthfully than Colonel Jacques, 

 and he thought there was nothing in it. 



Professor Agassiz. Facts are facts, and they are very stub- 

 born things. If I mention facts which I know, and you have 

 facts which are different, your negative facts will not annihilate 

 my positive facts. Mine are positive results. I mentioned 

 experiments with dogs. I have taken care that these animals 

 did not wander. I am not so careless, when I am making an 

 experiment, as to allow the animal that is experimented upon 

 to wander about and have connection with animals unseen. It 

 is kept in confinement. Now, when in such a case I obtain in 

 the second litter pups which have marks of the first father, that 

 is a fact ; it is no theory. That bitch' has not given birth to 

 pups like her first male in order to please me, but just because 

 she had been influenced that way, and she had to bring what 

 her belly contained. Those were the things I saw, and I cannot 

 say any more about it. 



James Thompson, of Nantucket. A fact has just come to my 

 mind which illustrates what the chairman has said in reference 

 to the breeding of animals. Three or four years ago there was 

 a ship cast away on our island, on board of which there was a 

 very fine bitch — a large, beautiful animal, and a perfect water 

 dog. A gentleman on the island had a large black Newfound- 

 land dog that was always playing in the water. They were 

 coupled together carefully, and the bitch kept clear from every 

 other dog for months afterwards, so that it should be a sure 

 thing. The result was a litter of five pups, only one of which 

 was worth the hair that was on them for water. You could not 

 drive them into the water ; you could not teach them to go into 

 the water. These animals belonged to two distinct families, 

 apparently, and were brought together under such circumstances 

 as confirm the statement that it is best to continue breeding in 

 the family as much as possible. 



I want to say a few words in regard to the breeding of cattle 

 and the stocking of farms. I do not wish to particularize any 

 breed of cattle, and I woufd not, only it seems to me that it is 

 not fair for us to go away with not a word said in favor of other 



