42 BOARD OF xiGRICULTURE. 



But in all our farming operations we should study nature and 

 try to conform to her laws, instead of setting up a constant 

 struo-o-le ao'ainst them. Nature has the advantage of us in 

 having plenty of time to work out her problems, and in the end 

 she is sure to win. Nature never made a perfectly developed 

 Shorthorn cow, nor a Cotswold sheep, on Plymouth or Bristol 

 County pastures, at least on the average of them. I saw two 

 specimens of what were called Shorthorn bulls at the Plymouth 

 show, but the owners were evidently deceiving themselves. I 

 regretted that they could not be placed, for the sake of po^Dular 

 instruction, alongside of the magnificent specimens at the 

 English or the Kentucky shows. Nothing could have been more 

 striking than the contrast which they would have presented. 

 Nothing could more clearly have demonstrated the folly of 

 attempting to force this class of stock in such localities. It 

 can't be done ; and the sooner it is given up the better will it be 

 for the purses of those who try it. 



Now, if the institution at Taunton wishes to breed for beef, 

 as we have a right to infer from the choice of the beef-producing 

 breed, why not take the Devons, a class of animals vastly better 

 adapted to the locality, and so do something to encourage and 

 improve the stock interest of the county? It certainly cannot 

 be for the interest of the farmers of that neighborhood to attempt 

 to enlarge their stock by an infusion of Shorthorn blood. They 

 are large enough for their pastures already. It is for their 

 interest to breed small cattle, such as can fill themselves easily, 

 or with comparative ease, on their light, pastures. Every step 

 they take in the way of enlarging the frames of their stock, is a 

 step in the wrong direction. And if they don't know it now, as 

 I think they do, they will soon find it out. The Devons would 

 stand some chance of making a fine-grained, well marbled beef, 

 and of attaining to fine points as compared with the Shorthorns, 

 and for breeding for beef or for working oxen, perhaps they 

 could not do better. The example of the institution would, 

 therefore, be vastly more salutary, if it should adopt this breed 

 instead of the Shorthorn, both of which are bred chiefly for the 

 same purpose, for the butcher. 



But I incline to think the kind of animal best adapted to that 

 section is tlie Ayrshire, unless it be on a few farms which may 

 be devoted chiefly to the butter dairy, where the Jersey might 



