14 PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING, 



extent, one of the most neglected branches of rural 

 economy. The fault is not that farmers do not keep 

 stock enough, much oftener they keep more than they 

 can feed to the most profitable point, and when a short 

 crop of hay comes, there is serious difficulty in sup- 

 porting them, or in selling them at a paying price ; but 

 the great majority neither bestow proper care upon the 

 selection of animals for breeding, nor do they appre- 

 ciate the dollars and cents difference between such as 

 are profitable and such as are profitless. How many 

 will hesitate or refuse to pay a dollar for the services of 

 a good bull when some sort of a calf can be begotten for 

 a '' quarter?'' and this too when one by the good male 

 would be worth a dollar more for veal and ten or twenty 

 dollars more when grown to a cow or an ox ? How 

 few will hesitate or refuse to allow to a butcher the cull 

 of his calves and lambs for a few extra shillings, and 

 this when the butcher's -difference in shillings would 

 soon, were the best kej^t and the worst sold, grow into 

 as many dollars and more ? How many there are who 

 esteem size to be of more consequence than symmetry, 

 or adaptation to the use for which they are kept? 

 How many ever sit down to calculate the difference in 

 money value between an animal which barely pays for 

 keeping, or perhaps not that, and one which pays a 

 profit ? 



