1858.] SENATE— No. 4. 47 



cult to find two animals that will be sure to transmit their own 

 characteristics to their offspring, but with two animals which 

 cannot be classed with any breed, the defects of an ill bred 

 ancestry will be liable to appear through several generations, 

 and thus thwart and disappoint the expectations of the breeder. 

 The objection of time and expense and disappointment attend- 

 ing this method should have no weight if there were no more 

 speedy method of accomplishing equally desirable results. 



The second mode is somewhat more feasible, and that is 

 to select animals from races already improved and well nigh 

 perfected, to cross with our cattle, using none but good 

 specimens of pure bred males. The offspring of these animals 

 will lie grades, but grades are often better for the practical 

 purposes of the farmer than pure bred animals. The skill 

 of the breeder is especially manifest in the selection of the male, 

 but this method of improvement requires less exact and practi- 

 cal knowledge than the first, from the fact that it is easier to 

 appreciate the good points of an animal already perfected, or 

 greatly improved, than to discover them in animals which it is 

 our desire to improve, and which are inferior in form, possessing 

 only the elements of improvement. It possesses also an immense 

 advantage, since results may be far more rapidly attained and 

 improvements effected which would be looked for in vain in the 

 ordinary life of man, by the first method, that of creating or 

 building up a race from the so called natives, by judicious selec- 

 tions. All grades are produced by this second method, but all 

 grades are not equally good nor equally well adapted to meet 

 the farmer's wants. It is desirable to know, then, what, on the 

 whole, are the best and most profitable to the practical farmer. 



"We want cattle for distinct purposes, as for milk, beef, or 

 labor. In by far the majority of cases in eastern Massachusetts 

 and within forty miles of Boston, the farmer cares more for the 

 milking qualities of his cows, especially for the quantity they 

 give, than for their fitness for breeding or aptness to fatten. 

 These latter points become more important in the western parts 

 of the State where far greater attention is paid to breeding and 

 to feeding, and where comparatively little milk is sold as milk, 

 but in the form of butter and cheese. A stock of cattle that 

 might suit one farmer might be wholly unsuited to another, 

 and in each particular case, the breeder should have some 



