io8 A Walk from 



following the same generous rule. They are bounded 

 by no nationalities. They are shut up in no narrow 

 enclosure of self, but are put out as new vesicles of light 

 to brighten the general illumination of the world. 



The department in which Jonas Webb attained to 

 his position and capacity of usefulness was peculiarly 

 marked by this characteristic. In a certain sense, it 

 occupied a higher range of interest than that section of 

 agriculture which is connected solely with the growing 

 of grain, grass and other crops. His great and 

 distinguishing husbandry was the cultivation of animal 

 life. To make two spires of grass grow where only one 

 grew before, has been pronounced as a great benefaction; 

 and greater still are the merit and the gain of making 

 one grow where nothing grew before. To go into the 

 midst of Dartmoor, and turn an acre of its cold, stony, 

 water-soaked waste into a fruitful field of golden grain, 

 is going into co-partnership with Providence in the 

 work of creation to a very large and honored degree. 

 But to put the skilful hand of science upon creatures of 

 flesh and blood, to reform their physical structures and 

 shapes, to add new inches to their stature, straighten 

 their backs, expand their reins, amplify their chests, 

 reduce all the lines and curves of their forms to an 

 unborn symmetry, and then to give silky softness and 

 texture to their aboriginal clothing this seems to be 



