258 Epidemics. 



upon food. But how by science are we to change the very 

 fate of Nature, and to have on one acre a supply of food for 

 twenty cattle instead of one, and those twenty shall be 

 in all points superior to the solitary animal that fed upon 

 the husks that Nature yielded of herself, as compared with 

 the luxuriant products which labour, directed by science, 

 freely supplies to the man who is diligent and wise in all his 

 undertakings ? Is it, then, here that we suddenly break off 

 from mere change of breed to the facts and blessings of 

 science ? 



But to return. What gave rise, more than a hundred 

 years ago, to our aiming at -improvement by crossing ? Let 

 it be suggested, in reply, Was it not because the breeds of a 

 past age were fast lapsing into some form or other of the 

 pristine stock from which they first originated, and with 

 relapse all the benefits of some anterior cross were gradually 

 bringing out the defects of successional purity ; whilst, on 

 the contrary, the accident of cross, undesigned by the wild 

 cattle, had in itself given rise to the suggestion that purity 

 only led to the onward tendency of defect? Hence, suitable 

 crossing, attempted by enterprising men, was adopted to 

 counter-check this downward degeneracy, out of which 

 suggestive influence (or, according to Bain and Carpenter, 

 unconscious cerebration or brain secretion of a good work 

 instead of a vile and wicked work) arose a new stock of 

 sires and dams, the short-horned breed, whose destiny is 

 for some time to come to affect the stock of cattle in all 

 lands.* 



It will be said, What about the horse ? The answer is, 

 that the crossing of all breeds has altered, and in some 

 instances greatly improved the horse, for the draught the 



* Upon this matter consult " Youatt upon Cattle," 1834, by the 

 Society for Promotion of Useful Knowledge. 



