78 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the supply of milk in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is 

 got from some other source than cows. It is found much more 

 profitable, my friends, to run something else than a cow. 



Why this is, it is difficult for me to tell. We have a good 

 dairy section here ; we have plenty of good pastures, and ought 

 to have an abundance of food ; but I am satisfied that the 

 trouble lies in the fact that we do not understand yet th^ most 

 systematic and economical way of producing milk, butter and 

 cheese. We are laboring under a difficulty still. We have 

 done a great deal, I agree ; we have progressed vastly in the 

 business of cattle husbandry. Cattle breeding — the bringing 

 of an animal up to the wants and necessities of man — consti- 

 tutes one of the most interesting chapters in agricultural history. 

 The ingenuity of men like the Ceilings and others in England, 

 in bringing a cow up to the wants and necessities of man, is one 

 of the most remarkable exhibitions of agricultural care and 

 skill. That plan by which the Shorthorn was produced ; that 

 plan by which the Merino sheep was produced ; that plan by 

 which the Devon has been brought forth, and by which man is 

 enabled to bring about a condition of the animal economy 

 suited to the most economical production of beef or milk, is 

 really a great triumph of human skill in the business of agri- 

 culture. 



Now we want to apply that skill to our dairy farming. We 

 have gone on very rapidly in this business, but not rapidly 

 enough ; and we do not understand it sufficiently, I am satis- 

 fied, here in this country to make a practical application of it. 

 We have created, as I have said, beef animals. I suppose that 

 a pound of beef can be made out of a well-bred, systematically 

 produced Shorthorn steer more cheaply than by any other ani- 

 mal in the world. I have no doubt, my friends, that a quart of 

 milk can be better produced by a systematically arranged cow, of 

 proper proportions, of a proper physical constitution, than by 

 any other animal on the face of the earth ; and when I tell you 

 that by the skill of dairy farmers in 'the operation of breeding — 

 that ill-shaped udder has been transformed into something so 

 fair, so symmetrical, that the eye of an artist would be glad to 

 look at it, and that cluster of teats — two long ones in front and 

 two short ones behind — has been discarded, and that great 

 hanging udder, dragging on the ground, has been tucked up 



