THOROUGHBRED CATTLE. 131 



FRANKLIN. 

 From the Report of the Committee. 



Thoroughbred Bulls. — The only oljject of agricultural 

 reports should be to give practical information upon the mat- 

 ters treated of. Your Committee do not feel competent to 

 give the subject such thorough consideration as its importance 

 calls for. To do it complete justice, it requires a thorough 

 knowledge of the principles of breeding and physiolog}'-, to 

 which your Chairman cannot lay claim. Therefore any one 

 who may peruse what may be here written, with a view of 

 drinking deeply at the fountain of instruction, will be disap- 

 pointed. 



The improvement of our stock is certainly, as claimed by 

 our breeders, a matter that can hardly be overrated. If any 

 one has not worked up to this idea, let him cast back to the 

 time previous to the injection of Ijetter "blood" into the veins 

 of our cattle, when our very best two-year-old cattle, when 

 butchered, would only on rare occasions come up to five hun- 

 dred pounds, dressed weight, and so unthrifty or of so small 

 capacity for growth as to hardly pay for their keep. Then 

 let him compare what he can recollect of them, with what is 

 patent to his senses now, when he beholds our best stock, 

 which our best breeders and raisers annuall}^ exhibit at our 

 fairs, and though as inclined to sleep as Rip Van Winkle, we 

 think he would be thoroughly aroused. "Whence came this 

 better blood, that has made this desert of scalaicags to "bud 

 and blossom," and bear so bountiful harvests to the cultivator? 

 Its origin was in the brain of man. 



Observing the different degrees of excellence in different 

 animals of the same species, the idea, or inspiration, was given 

 him that, by breeding from none but the very best, and then 

 from none but the very best of the progeny thus produced, — 

 if, carried on with toilsome but never-flagging perseverance, 

 the product of this great labor, — the outgrowth of this inspi- 

 ration would finally culminate in the transformation of this 

 field of sterility into a garden of Eden ; or, if that be too 

 poetical, we will say, he found his stock not only quadrupled 

 in value, but that his bulls, bred in this manner, possessed a 



