202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Secretary Russell. Fourteen years ago, at the time of 

 the boom, so called, in Ayrshires, I was asked to collect a 

 herd for Mr. Pierre Lorillard, to supply milk for thorough- 

 bred colts. This was my first acquaintance with Ayrshires ; 

 I knew very little about them, and I found that they had the 

 reputation of being very quarrelsome. They had thin, light, 

 waxy horns. I did not care much about the horns ; and in 

 going through Connecticut, where I bought thirteen or four- 

 teen cows, I found that I could buy a cow that had knocked 

 off one or both horns in fighting, at from $100 to $200 less 

 than the price that was asked for cows with horns that were 

 still in good preservation ; and nearly all the cows that I 

 bought had lost one or both of their horns. Now, there is 

 nothing in that, except that if it had not been fashionable to 

 have horns those breeders would have got full price for their 

 cows ; and if horns were of any value at all we did not un- 

 derstand it so, and we would just as lief have them with the 

 broken horns as with whole horns. Those cows became the 

 basis of the Rancocas herd, at Mr. Lorillard's farm in New 

 Jersey. 



Now, as to the strength and use of the horns on the head 

 of a ball, I have probably had better opportunities to sec 

 them in use than any man here present. I have seen a bull 

 kill five horses within twenty minutes by my watch ; and one 

 of those horses, with a stout man on his back, the bull took 

 on his horns and carried as far as from here half-way across 

 this hall, and dashed horse and man against a barrier six feet 

 in height. He raised the horse and the man up to the edge 

 of the barrier. The action of an animal that knows how to 

 use the horn is as deadly and quick as the action of a swords- 

 man with a sword. I have seen a matador, as they call the 

 man who kills the bull in the arena, dancing about, dodging 

 the horns of the bull, waiting to get his thrust in the neck ; 

 it was quite like fencing. I have seen an expert matador 

 thrown down by a bull and a horn run through his silk cloth- 

 ing, across the skin, so as to show blood to the gaze of the 

 delifirhted audience ; and when a man has srot a contused 

 wound from a bull's horn, say, for instance, in the small of 

 his back, he is one of the most useless human beings you 

 ever saw. 



