1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 73 



to-day for a specific purpose. They have not been governed 

 by any notions, but have kept within the line and maintained 

 their purpose, and the horse is what he is. 



I have said that this distinct effect of breeding on tem- 

 perament was shown clearly in dogs. (I will come to the 

 cattle pretty soon.) Have you ever, my friends, noticed 

 the effect of breeding in a straight, specific line upon dogs ? 

 Take, for instance, the bird-dog, the setter or pointer. He 

 has as sharp a nose as any dog in the world, and a very 

 peculiar, delicate power of scent. Take the fox-hound. He 

 has a nose just as sharp. Wonderfully delicate are his 

 discernings. I have seen one regain a track after twenty- 

 four hours had elapsed, and slowly and carefully, painfully, 

 you might say, work it out. One would not suppose that 

 in the filamentary intelligence of that dog's brain there could 

 come any discernment ; but it was there. The wonders of 

 nature are not wrapped up in the form of man altogether. 

 Now, there are those two dogs. One of them has been bred 

 specifically to discern the scent of birds. Pie will cross a 

 thousand fox tracks, and never know it, — pay no attention 

 whatever to them ; but let him range a field in front of you, 

 and the moment that he strikes the track of a bird you see 

 the result of years of breeding in the suddenly arrested pose 

 of that dog. You see him stand and stiffen, and there comes 

 to him the answer of his purpose, — a purpose commenced 

 back hundreds of years ago, and augmented by increasing 

 efforts every year, until he is the product of it to-day. A 

 fox-hound beating over the ground crosses a thousand bird 

 tracks, and never knows it. His power of scent is just as 

 great as that of the bird-dog, but the purpose is different. 

 Suddenly he strikes the track of a fox, and then he lifts 

 his head and exclaims, in the hound's tongue, "Eureka! 

 Eureka !" — " I have found him." "Found what, Mr. Fox- 

 hound ? " " Found that for which I was bred, — found a fox 

 track." 



Now, what I complain of, my friends, is that the breeders 

 of dairy cattle have not been dealing with these forces one 

 hundredth part as intelligently as has the breeder of the 

 horse, the breeder of the dog, or the breeder of the chicken. 

 Those men have set their eyes upon the purpose which they 



