1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 71 



dog is universally a dog of a nervous temperament. This is 

 peculiarly seen in dogs. I have been a breeder of dogs, and 

 I have been quite a student of them. The bull-dog, the bird- 

 dog, the setter or the pointer, has a construction always 

 agreeing in function with his temperament. The fox-hound 

 the same way. There is something very interesting when 

 you take the physiological basis of these animals, or the 

 physiological basis of all animals, and commence to study 

 function from the basis of temperament, and then deduce 

 from it the laws that should govern you in handling and 

 feeding them. The animal of the nervous temperament 

 requires a different food, seems to have a different order of 

 assimilation. The dairy cow has to be fed differently from 

 a beef animal, if she carries out her function. 



Now, these things apply largely, my friends, in our study 

 of the laws of breeding. When we come to breeding, then 

 we are dealing with the physiology of the question, and we 

 are supposed to be " as gods, knowing good from evil." 

 The difficulty with the average cow of Massachusetts and 

 Wisconsin is that she has been bred with scarcely any refer- 

 ence to her temperament and to her purpose. Intelligence 

 has not gone ahead and guided the life that was to come ; 

 and, as a consequence, the average farmer has been breeding 

 blindly, — dealing with these wonderfully deep forces, and 

 dealing with them blindly. If there is a man on earth who 

 is God's vicegerent here, it is the breeder, the man to whom 

 God has delegated the power to handle and shape life. 



These thoughts — I am only outlining them now a little — 

 have led me to make a special study of dairy cattle for thirty 

 years ; and I found, as I began to divide the question upon 

 temperament, the reasons that had produced the animal. I 

 found that, wherever you had a dairy cow of a decided and 

 distinct specialty of purpose and function, you had a cow of 

 agreeing temperament, though she might be of a different 

 breed. Now, here is a Guernsey cow, and there is a 

 Holstein cow. (Referring to the illustrations.) You see 

 in the two cows a peculiar agreement of outline, contour, 

 appearance and expression. Both of them are of decidedly 

 nervous temperament. Now, nervous temperament, as I 

 said, has a remarkable effect upon form. It produces the 



