356 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



native region, and who does not believe that very evident clianges 

 would be produced ? The mistakes which our farmers are con- 

 tinually making in stock breeding, grow out of incorrect ideas in 

 this matter. For instance, a fine breed of cattle or swine is intro- 

 duced. A farmer thinks if he can only get somo of that slock once 

 on his farm, he will be made. He pays a high price for a pair of 

 calves whose ancestors have been accustomed to a fixed course of 

 tender treatment ; having been stabled much, and fed with great 

 care on the best of food. He turns out his calves to gel what they 

 can catch, without shelter or salt, or any tiling else which this breed 

 has been accustomed to, and he wonders that their blood does not 

 show itself omnipotently against all these disadvantages. He no- 

 tices, perhaps, that ihey do not thrive as well as his scrubs. The 

 fact is, the shock of the transition is too great. Many have inferred, 

 in this way, that the short-horns would never answer for our farms, 

 because they cannot endure rough treatment. The short-horns have 

 undoubtedly been more petted and tenderly treated than any other 

 breed ; but if the transition from tender to rough treatment be pro- 

 perly conducted, they will probably endure it as well as any other. 

 If a man gets an animal which has been stabled all his days, and 

 suckled till a year old ; and turns him out to shirk, the animal will 

 run down. But we are told by stock-growers that the short-horns, if 

 once accustomed to rough treatment and coarse feed, will endure it 

 as well as oiher cattle. This may be so ; but they will not continue 

 to retain the peculiarities of short-horns. This belief the fire will 

 not melt out of us. To produce a uniform race of cattle, there must 

 be uniform treatment, as well as correct breeding. An animal's body 

 is made of lohat he eats and drinks. 



Hence the great disappointment of those swine-breeders in the 

 Southern iS tales, who rushed into the Berkshire growing, without 

 any reference to their mode of keeping hogs. They are accustomed 

 much in the South to let their swine range, and get their own living 

 by eating roots, snakes, acorns, and corn in the field. An animal, to 

 do this, must liave legs and wind. The berkshire had neither, and 

 of course soon fell in the rear. He was as much out of his element 

 as a horse in a singing school : he had not "the hang of that school- 

 house." He might be kept till he got it, perhaps ; when he could 

 get his living as well as others. But he would cease to be a berk- 

 shire — he would become a sharkshire. A berkshire's place is a 

 snug clover lot in summer ; a pen in winter, with good food brought 

 to him. With these, he is himself; without them, somebody else. 

 Our readers will easily see the conclusion to which we come. 

 The men who say "Give us the durhams for tlie West," or "Give 

 us the ayrshires," or "the devons," without any reference to what 

 use they are intended for, or what treatment they are to receive, 

 have none of our sympathies. 



We have but room here to notice another error, which is, in 

 breeding. The individuals of a breed differ much. Some short-horns 



