96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ones. If Tanner is correct in saying that the lungs and liver of 

 high-bred Durhams are lessened, it would merely indicate a re- 

 sult of the general tendency to lay up hydro-carbons and fat 

 rather than burn them up for animal heat. " 



These five influences which I have named are well under our 

 control ; we can apply them on generation after generation, and 

 thus increase and perpetuate many of those properties which 

 we most desire. Other causes of variation there are which 

 are less under our control, but which it is none the less im- 

 portant we should study and avail of when occasion serves. 



6//i. Imaginalion. — Under this head naturally comes up the 

 question why the best of Laban's cattle produced a ring-streaked 

 and spotted progeny after Jacob had set peeled rods in front of 

 their watering troughs, and notwithstanding that all the parti- 

 colored cattle had been carefully removed from the herd. IIow 

 much was miraculous and how much a natural conseqence, we 

 don't know. That God took this means of blessing his servant 

 does not necessarily imply that lie made use of other than the 

 already existing physiological laws, and intensified them as 

 wiien he now cheers the land with an abundant harvest. 



Though it is often attempted to throw discredit on the influ- 

 ence exercised over the child by the imagination of the pregnant 

 mother, yet the general opinion on this subject has undoubtedly 

 a foundation in truth, and its importance is frequently verified 

 by occurrences among domestic animals. 



Dr. Trail Monymusk, Aberdeen, mentions the case of a bay 

 mare which worked, was stabled and grazed with a black geld- 

 ing having white legs and face, straight hocks and long pasterns, 

 so that tlie feet seemed to be set at right angles On the legs. 

 Covered by a bay horse she produced a foal exactly like the 

 gelding in color and shape, and especially in that of the legs. 



Mr. John McGraw, Ithaca, N. Y., had a beautifully formed 

 trotting marc covered by a horse of the same kind. The mare 

 pastured during pregnancy in the next park to a mule, and the 

 foal shows an unmistakably mulish aspect about the head, ears, 

 thighs and gait. 



Mr. Mustard, Forfarshire, had a black polled-Angus cow served 

 by a bull of the same breed, but the calf was black and white, 

 and horned like an ox with which the cow had pastured. 



Mr. McCombie of Tillyfuur, had twenty pollcd-Angus cows 



