182 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tiful animals of this breed, imported by the Massachusetts 

 Society for Promoting Agriculture, possessed no pedigree ; that 

 they were purchased of the most eminent breeder of this stock 

 in England, by competent judges, without regard to cost, and 

 that no pedigree was asked for or given. This society would 

 hardly exclude Roebuck from competition for its prizes, not- 

 withstanding he was not to be traced through a long line of 

 ancestors in the genealogical tree of the North Devons. 



One of the most beautiful Durham cows examined by the 

 committee, with a pedigree as long as the tail of a comet of the 

 first magnitude, and of purity equal to the unspotted snow, 

 showed to the practiced eye the unmistakable signs of an 

 Ayrshire cross upon some perhaps far removed ancestor. No 

 member of the committee doubted, or could doubt the existence 

 of a taint in her blood, judging from appearances. Yet the 

 herald's office of the Durhams disclosed no bar sinister, and 

 she is written down thorough-bred. Then there is the question 

 of the identity of the animal exhibited, with the animal regis- 

 tered in the book, — what evidence is there of that ? Clearly, 

 the statement of the competitor, and that alone. If then such 

 statement as to identity is satisfactory, shall it be satisfactory as 

 to purity of blood ? For there is no authorized American herd- 

 book, and if there was, it would prove only, that the animal 

 whose pedigree was therein recorded was thorough-bred ; not 

 that the animal not named therein was not thorough-bred. 



Above all, and more than all this. For more than fifty years 

 our enterprising farmers have had the benefit of the services of 

 as fine animals as good judgment could select and money could 

 purchase, till it can with truth be said, that there is hardly a 

 cow in the county but has in her veins a strain of the best blood 

 of some one of the best breeds in Europe. 



What herald's college can furnish a better pedigree for a 

 working ox, than the breeder of the red oxen of Sutton and 

 Charlton, or of a dairy cow, than the butter and cheese makers 

 of New Braintree and Barre, of Princeton and Shrewsbury. If 

 the society shall require a pedigree traceable through the pages 

 of the herd-books, shall its prizes be awarded to the best Durham 

 or Devon, or shall the award be determined by reference to the 

 adaptability of the breed or specimen of the herd to the soil. 



