Introducing Animals From Foreign Countries. 159 



upon which they can depend. They have neither the 

 large numbers, the skill nor the facilities for adequate 

 experiments to create new values in breeds. The 

 splendid results in breed formation and in breed im- 

 provement already achieved have been most wonderful, 

 but hardly up to the rapid pace being set by the other 

 lines of improvement in the world's affairs. Experi- 

 ments wisely conducted in this line will relieve private 

 persons from undertaking so much expenditure, as in 

 many other lines taken up by the experiment stations 

 supported by public funds. But the main reason for 

 the co-operation of the Nation and the State is the far 

 more rapid improvement made possible. The figures 

 suggested for public expenditure may seem high, but 

 our present live stock blood does not average very high 

 in value. The case seems to be parallel with plant 

 improvement in most ways. The expence is far great- 

 er with a given species or a given hybrid, but the num- 

 ber of new species and the number of possible hybrids 

 are far less. The plant products are two-fifths larger 

 in value, and since there is such a diversity of forms 

 and more need of closely adapting plants to each lo- 

 cal region, it is quite probable that the aggregate cost 

 of plant improvement will prove greater than in an- 

 imal improvement. The magnitude of the enterprise 

 need not deter a nation which can support such large 

 affairs as our postal system, our merged railways, our 

 steel combines, our political parties or our federations 

 of women. The time seems more nearly ripe for great 

 merged farmers' enterprises than earlier, when the dan- 

 gers such organizations encounter when they try to 

 mix business, manufacture and politics had not been 

 discovered. In some States the federated farmers' or- 

 ganizations have already made successful combined 

 movements to better finance agricultural research and 

 education. But such a long-time 'proposition as breed- 

 ing animals or even plants must have those largest fed- 

 erations, the States and the United States, to support 



