50 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



belonging to a neighbor, gives seventeen quarts of milk at 

 calving, and will give from seven to nine v^^lien she comes in, 

 while the best cow that he brought there from his farm will go 

 dry two or three months. " 



I started with as good a herd of Ayrshires as anybody could 

 start with. I got the bulls out of as good a stock. There are 

 some here who have seen both breeds of mine, and they know 

 there is one Jersey among them that is as pretty a formed cow 

 as the Ayrshire. She was out of a cow imported by a friend of 

 "Webster, and presented to him. She has been crossed long 

 enough to attain the handsome form that they acquire in the 

 eastern part of the State. I saw some as handsome, in Concord, 

 N. H., as I ever saw anywhere. 



I do not wish to leave the impression that I despise the Ayr- 

 shires, or the one breed or another. I think that if the institu- 

 tions do adopt any one particular breed, that one should take 

 the Jerseys and another the Ayrshires, and that the one at 

 Northampton should take the Shorthorns. I think the three 

 breeds should be bred at the different institutions ; and if it is 

 necessary for the comparison to breed them side by side, do that 

 at the Agricultural College. 



The President. — The chair would remind gentlemen that the 

 Resolution does not raise that question, but simply requires that 

 the public institutions should each be made a breeding centre of 

 some particular kind of stock, to which the public can go and 

 obtain pure animals without paying speculative prices. 



Mr. Stedman. — I think the gentleman from Nantucket (Mr. 

 Thompson,) has presented the case exactly. He started with 

 Ayrshires alone. Would it have been wiser to keep only that 

 breed than to bring in the Jerseys and compare them ? He did 

 just what I wish to see done at the public institutions, so that 

 they can be subjected to the same treatment. 



Mr. Flint, Secretary of the Board. — I suppose it is well 

 known that our public institutions are not very well calculated 

 to conduct a series of experiments in a satisfactory manner. I 

 do not know a single State farm where I think it would be 

 judicious to undertake a series of experiments as to the charac- 

 ter of the different breeds of stock. It seems to me it is not the 

 place. In the first place, they have a duty to perform which is 

 the highest of any, which is to raise a sufficient quantity of milk 



