1853. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



459 



As to the value of the several kinds of cattle though remote, for present gain. If we v?ish for 



imported into this country from Great Britain, 

 the Durhams, Devons, Ilerefords, Ayrshires and 

 Alderneys are the most popular and l)est known. 

 Of these, many prefer the Devon. It is an excel- 

 lent kind, especially for working oxen and beef. 

 They are thus described by Arthur Young, for- 

 merly Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, and 

 one of the most careful observers and best writers 

 of the day. 



" The thorough bred Devon is of a bright red ; 

 neck and head small, eyes bright and prominent, 

 and round it a ring of bright yellow, the nose 

 round the nostril having the same color ; the horn 

 clear and transparent, upright, tapering, and 

 gently curved, but not tipped with black." 



There can be no question that a very important 

 improvement may be made in our native stock by 

 judicious crossings with the more valuable imported 

 stock ; yet there appears not to be the necessity 

 for this crossing of different breeds and bloods in 

 order to elevate the character of the former, which 

 many regard as indispensable. The great error in 

 our system is the habitual selection of our finest 

 animals for the market, instead of retaining them 

 as breeders. A fine cow or a well proportioned 

 bull is almost sure to be disposed of, while the 

 poor and diminutive animals are kept for propo- 

 gation. No fiirmer thinks it judicious to sell his 

 best seed corn, and plant the shrivelled and im- 

 perfectly formed kernels. His seed wheat, pota- 

 toes, oats, beans, peas, and rye for stocking his 

 lands, are selected from the best. Why, in stock- 

 ing his farm with animals, should he not pursue 

 the same good policy ! The practice of" breeding 

 in and in," as it is termed, is also another cause 

 of depreciation. In the human family this law, so 

 repugnant to every feeling of delicacy, is product- 

 ive of precisely the same result as in the case of 

 domestic animals. Intermarrying within certain 

 degrees of consanguinity is sure to stultify the 

 progeny, and render ihem imbecile, idiotic, and 

 frequently insane. Its effects are highly adverse 

 to all healthy developments, physical, moral and 

 intellectual, of the true man. The royal line of 

 Spain is reduced to a condition of the most pitia- 

 ble imbecility and inefiiciency, by the aristocratical 

 and impolitic practice of intermarriage, adopted 

 with a view of preserving from corruption the 

 purity of the royal blood. At one period, not a 

 single individual, it is asserted, could be found pos- 

 sessed of suflicient ability to direct the most ordi- 

 nary affairs, much less to sway the sceptre of a 

 realm over whose interests he was expected to 

 watch with the vigilant anxiety of a parent's care. 

 When a well developed animal is seen in our 

 flocks (ir herds, we should refuse all offers for it, 

 and dispose of our diminutive and less valuable 

 animals, even though the price be small 



good animals — such as will amply repay us for the 

 expense and trouble of keeping them, and be an 

 ornament both to our farmers and to our com- 

 mcm country, we must revolutionize the entire sys- 

 tem of breeding, as it now exists and is practised, 

 and adopt in its place one which will obviate the 

 unpleasant and disgusting results it is so admira- 

 bly calculated to produce. With our own excel- 

 lent breed of black cattle, we can accomplish 

 much even without foreign aid ; but with it we 

 can do much better by judicious crossings. 



EFFECT OF RAILROADS. 



At a meeting of the Farmer's Institute, New 

 York, where the subject under discussion was the 

 benefitof railroads to the farmer, Mr. Solon Rob- 

 inson, Editor of theiVetD York Agricultor, sa.\d : — 



"I have tried to convince farmers of the im- 

 mense value of this rapid communication to them — 

 that it was their salvation. The first eSect has 

 been to bring beef cattle one thousand miles to 

 our market in a week. Game and poultry come 

 the same distance in forty-eight hours. The oxen 

 come as the market requires, notice of which goes 

 by telegraph for the number required. The cost 

 per ox is about ten or twelve dollars, whereas, on 

 foot, as of old, the oxen travel with loss of flesh 

 and heavy expense on the road, from sixty to ninety 

 days before they reach New York. Strange that 

 many formers do not understand this. Sometimes 

 our city would starve without this railroad supply. 

 Last spring all the chief articles within striking 

 distance were exhausted ; now we rarely have on 

 hand one hundred of oxen at a time. Some cattle 

 are shipped from Chicago to Buffalo — some from 

 Indiana go by cars to Cleaveland on Cake Erie, 

 thence by cars to Dunkirk and to Buffalo, thence 

 the greater part come by the Hudson river. Last 

 week there came in a drove of cattle raised by the 

 Cherokee Indians, marked with their hieroglyph- 

 ics. An Illinois drover had bought them, fed them 

 a while, and then brought them here by railroad, 

 &.G. Look at the map and see what a walk that 

 drove must have had to reach New York without 

 the steam and railroad ! Oxen can travel only 

 about ten on twelve miles a day. And our milk 

 for the morning coffe was milked last night, and 

 drawn from Chatam Four Corners, one hundred 

 and thirty miles distant from our city. Some 

 years ago it was proposed to Mr. R. L. Stevens, 

 to have a freight train on his road, but he thought 

 one car only would be used, and that, would not 

 pay. Now look — there is a blackberry train ! All 

 this intercommunication is a great civilizer — all 

 sorts of people are brought to a knowledge of 

 each other, and a knowledge of the business of 

 their own country and the world. The birds used 

 to have the blackberries all to themselves — nobody 

 could get the one-thousandth part of them. I 

 say nothing of the whortleberries which now come 

 by rail, and are on the tables of everybody. And 

 the lands near the railroads are growing more val- 

 uable every day, and they are in course of cultiva- 

 tion and improvements, and without the railroads 



It is a! they would not have been reached this century, 

 bad policy in this matter to disregard future, '^nd hardly that. The benefits go with the roads. 



