102 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



thresher, travelling from field to field, shelling, cleaning and 

 running into bags hundreds of bushels of grain per day. But 

 I must not prolong this train of thought, nor can I even enu- 

 merate the multitude of labor-saving implements which the 

 genius of man has invented for the relief of toil in our own 

 time. 



I must not, however, omit to mention the great improve- 

 ment which has taken place in our horses, cattle, sheep and 

 swine ; in their classification, adaptation to various soils, mar- 

 kets, and uses. 



It is less than eighty years since the introduction of the 

 Shorthorn breed of cattle. Now, witness the fine herds of Mr. 

 Whitman and others. To such perfection has the Duchess 

 strain been bred, that at a sale lately made in the State of New 

 York, one cow, the Duchess of Geneva, brought forty thou- 

 sand dollars, her calf of five months twenty-seven thousand dol- 

 lars, the whole herd of one hundred and eight animals realizing 

 three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or over three thousand 

 dollars per head. Witness, also, the improvement which has 

 taken place in other breeds, in the same or a less period of 

 time ; in the Ayrshires, as seen in the splendid herds of Bir- 

 nie, Sturtevant, Miles, and others ; in the Jerseys of Bur- 

 nett (carrying ofi" all the prizes at the late New York Exhibi- 

 tion), Bowditch, and Adams of a hundred head. The fine 

 Kerrys of Mr. GrinncU, of Greenfield, and last though least 

 in size, the beautiful Brittanies, imported by our Secretary 

 Flint, so useful for small families and limited grounds. Sim- 

 ilar advances have taken place in the improvement of other 

 animals, especially the horse, as in the studs of General Rus- 

 sell, David Nevins, Joseph H. Billings, and others, some of 

 which, for stock purposes, corresponding with the highest 

 prices for cattle. 



Nor should I forget to allude to the vast area of our cereal 

 crops, rightly termed the exhaustless granary of the world, 

 and upon which the nations of Europe are mainly dependent 

 to make up the deficiency of their crops, England demajiding 

 a hundred million and France fifty million bushels for the 

 present year. How would our Pilgrim Fathers have re- 

 joiced, when rendering special thanks to the God of harvests 

 for their annual crop of twenty bushels of corn, six bushels of 



