256 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



feiting and over-feeding, for the purpose of increasing her 

 milk, in all probability, materially affected the character of her 

 progeny, none of which are known to have been raised till after 

 the year 1816. — Ed. 



BRISTOL. 



From the Report of the Committee on Breeding Stock. 



A sincere desire on the part of your committee to awaken 

 an interest in the breeding of good stock, and a wish to impress 

 upon the farmers of Bristol County a sense of the importance 

 of attention to blood, induce them to prolong this report even 

 beyond the usual limits. 



We have valuable materials at hand, and it is only necessa- 

 ry for them to be known and appreciated by our farmers, to 

 make stock-growing vastly more remunerative in Bristol Coun- 

 ty than it ever yet has been. 



There are among us intelligent farmers, who have added to 

 practical skill and long experience the fruits of study and re- 

 search in the broad field which the agricultural literature of the 

 day opens to them. To such men the teachings of your com- 

 mittee will not be necessary. Nor do we address the " old 

 fogy," whose ambition does not soar above the results produced 

 by his great-grandfather. The narrow-minded farmer who is 

 content to jog on, wrapped in a mantle of stupid prejudice, un- 

 mindful of the advantages which new usages and discoveries 

 offer to him, — who is satisfied to live in a world of progress, 

 yet clinging obstinately to the past, — will probably close his 

 ears to all advice, and pursue his own policy, right or wrong, 

 until the day when he is called upon to leave a world which 

 has received no new beauty from his hands. 



But there is still another class — fortunately a numerous one 

 — to whom a word of advice may not appear impertinent. This 

 class is composed of young men who are intelligent and enter- 

 prising, but whoso opportunities for study have been limited, 

 and whose habits of observation have never been properly cul- 

 ed. Such men are anxious to improve, but hardly know 

 how to begin. 



