*^ 172 THE GENESEE FAKMER. ("^ 



to such ahsurditie9 as are pnt forth in the essay we have been considering, instead of effecting improye- 

 nient, it encourages miserable humbuggerj. 



"If any further excuse is necessary to justify the space we haA-e occupied in this rcTiew, we might 

 say that the essay in question has ah'eady received notices of commendation from papers devoted to 

 agriculture. It is so noticed in the Southern Cultivator ioT May, 1852, in an article headed, 'The 

 Science of Improving Domestic Animals, by Daniel Lee, M, D.' (It is not improper to mention thai 

 the Report of the Patent Office which contains this essay, was published while Dr. Lee was Agri- 

 cultui'al Clerk in that department.) l\Ir. Buowxe's views have also, we are so.iry to say, been highly 

 spoken of by T. C. Peteks, Esq., editor of the Wool Grower. (See January number, current vol., 

 of that papei'." 



The legitiinate inference from the above vrould seem to be, that Dr. Lee ought to 

 have excluded a communication on an important branch of husbandry, because there 

 might be a reasonable doubt whether a natural line can be drawn between .sheep on 

 which wool predominates and those on which hair predominates. Such a rule, rigidly 

 carried out, would prevent the making of any agricultural report whatever, or any agri- 

 cultural paper; for men of intelligence enough to ha-ve their own opinions on rural 

 affairs, neither think alike, nor write alike ; and they cannot at any agi-icultural meeting, 

 be forced to talk alike. One man's wisdom is to another folly in the extreme ; and 

 without toleration and forbearance, all popular discussion is impracticable. 



In the Patent Office Report for 1850, Mr, Mark K. Cockri.ll, of Nashvifle, Tenn., 

 who has some $200,000 invested in sheep and land to keep them on, says : " I have 

 studied this subject thirty-five years [the breeding of sheep] with diligence and devotion, 

 and thought I had come to correct conclusions : but the commissioner, Hon. E. Burke, 

 decided that 1 was wrong and most decidedly mistaken in the whole matter." Mr. C. 

 speaks of Mr. Browne as a gentleman of science, " who has devoted years to the study 

 of wool and hair;" and, after quoting his microscopic measurements of sixty-five 

 samples of wool, eighteen of which camo from Europe, and were furnished by Mr. 

 Fleischman, he adds : " Mr. Browne deserves from our wool-growers a service of plate 

 and a suit of clothes from the fleece of 2186, for his investigations on this important 

 subject." 



Mr. B. was endorsed not only by the veteran editor and founder of the PIoiv, Zoom 

 and Anvil and the Hon. R. R. Reed, a large wool-gi'ower and member of Congress from 

 Pennsylvania, but by a number of the most intelligent farmers in Virginia, Maryland, 

 and Delaware. The editor of the Boston Cultivator is too j^f'ovincial in his views as to 

 what men may be allowed to say on a purely scientific subject, the physiology of sheep 

 breeding, in a national work on American Agriculture. Agricultural writers in Penn- 

 sylvania and Tennessee have as good a right to be heard in a Patent Office Report 

 printed by Congress as any in Massachusetts or New England. Why not? 



Mr. Browne may be in error; we, certainly, have never "endorsed" his peculiar 

 theory in reference to hair on sheep, or wool on the heads of negroes. What we sakl 

 in the Southern Cultivator m treating of the " Science of Improving Domestic Animals," 

 in which the views of Dr. Browne were incidentally referred to, was in condemnation 

 of the too common practice of uniting the extremes of dificrent breeds and species of 

 animals. The mammoth New Oxfordshire or Leicester sheep may be descended from the 

 same original race, as the smallest Saxons or Merinoes ; and so may the large cart-horse 

 of London and the Shetland pony ; but such extremes are too great for a direct and 

 successful cross between them. Some of the very large Durham stock imported by Mr. 

 Clay found its way down to Georgia, and was crossed on the small native cattle of the 

 latter State. The issue was anything but satisfactory. Piney woods pastures the year 

 round were sorry ranges for animals whose progenitors had been pampered for many 

 generations on the richest feed in Kentucky and England. 



No matter what animals a farmer breeds, he should make good keeping an indispensi- 

 ble element in his system, and aim to realize a steady improvement by small but sure 

 - », changes for the better. The value of crosses is' often over-estimated. We have heard .r 



iL 41 



