92 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



stock by never improving it. in this way a man with a pretty 

 good stock will after a while run it out, when he ought to be 

 iuuproving it. He forgets tliat well-bred parents transmit to 

 their offspring more of their own bodily and constitutional 

 qualities than ill-bred ones can. As respects cattle, sheep and 

 horses in this country, in most cases the qualities of the male 

 parent predominate in the offspring, for the reason that the 

 males are better-bred usually, having strong and well estab- 

 lished characteristics, while the ancestors of a badly-bred animal 

 vary in every possible way, and consequently have no distinctive 

 family characteristic. A thorough-bred ram when coupled 

 with an ill-bred ewe marks his peculiar characteristics very 

 plainly upon the offspring. 



An almost equal waste too is not selecting for breeding 

 purposes the best females of our own stock. How often is it 

 that an old broken down mare, or a cow with great defects is 

 put to breeding because she is fit for nothing else. "When such 

 a course is pursued by breeders of any kind of stock, they must 

 suffer for their own folly and penuriousness. We quote from 

 " Goodale's Principles of Breeding Domestic Animals," a most 

 vf^luable and interesting book, which should be in the hands 

 of every farmer. " The neglect which is too common, and 

 especially in breeding horses to the qualities of the dam, 

 miserably old and inferior females being often employed, 

 cannot be too strongly censured. 



" In rearing valuable horses the dams are not of less conse- 

 quence than the sires, although their influence upon the progeny 

 be not the same." 



It is a waste too to sell from the farm the crops raised upon 

 it, and which by the- rules of good husbandry should be 

 consumed upon the place, to make the manure which contains 

 the essential principles for the production of the next crop, 

 without which or its equivalent the naturally unprofitable soils 

 of New England would too faintly respond to the most earnest 

 calls of laborious operations. 



A story is told of a French priest, who, as was common in 

 his country many years ago, while blessing the fields at the 

 beginning of the season, came to one so wretchedly bad as to 

 stagger even his faith. Closing his book he said to the owner, 

 " my son, blessing will not help this field, it wants manure." 



