276 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



lection from our native breeds, or by judicious crossings, which 

 shall be better adapted to our climate, soil, and keeping than 

 is any purely foreign breed ; no good reason why, if England 

 has her Devons, Durhams, and Herefords, and Scotland her 

 Ayrshires, and Ireland her Kerries, and Jersey her Alderncys, 

 which are worth importation at enormous cost, America may 

 not have a breed of peculiar form, size, beauty, and excellence, 

 adapted to her peculiar climate and soil — home-bred, and there- 

 fore better fitted for home-keeping. We hope that profitable 

 suggestions upon this whole subject may hereafter be given to 

 the society by some one whose experience and study shall lend 

 authority to his words. 



Meanwhile we would encourage the rearing of the best 

 classes of stock upon the farms of Norfolk county, confident 

 that such stock may be kept here more easily and with better 

 results than any which is purchased elsewhere.* At the same 

 time we would insist that the utmost care and attention should 

 be bestowed on the selection and rearing of all stock. We 

 sometimes hear it said that a bull is a bull, and that any chance 

 offspring is as good for the farmer's stock as that of the best 

 selected breed, whether of pure or mixed blood. Such a be- 

 lief, and the practical conclusions drawn from it, must forever 

 prevent the improvement of the dairy and the comfort and 

 profit of farming. 



Mr. Coleman remarks, in his European Agriculture, that the 

 " South Devons,"' which he distinguishes by very marked differ- 

 ence from the beautiful " North Devons," "are animals indcnti- 

 cal with the great mass of cattle to be found in New England." 

 " In respect to them, as far as I could learn, no particular pains 

 have been taken to improve their breed, and to see what could 

 be made of them, as in the ease of the short-horns, the Here- 

 fords, and the North Devons." May not this remark be made, 

 with equal fitness and force, respecting the mass of the cattle 

 now in New England? And in the beauty and excellence of 

 the line North Devons, Durhams, Ayrshires, and Jerseys exhib- 



* Animals arc wont to thrive better at home than from I oi te. The most cele- 

 ! foreign bn L to "do much better in their own locality than when 



removed." 



