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close-shouldered, easily fattening, which are to be avoided. 

 Some are found, also, with a peculiar shelliness of skin, a 

 hard, unyielding, inelastic feel, which is very objectiona- 

 ble. Avoiding these two defects, you can hardly fail of 

 purchasing a good cow, taking the average as they appear 

 on the farms in Ayrshire. 



The oxen of this breed are remarkable for activity and 

 vigor, and for great thrift when fed for the shambles. 



I call your attention to this hasty review of the difFerent 

 breeds of cattle, not for the purpose of enabling you to de- 

 termine, without further investigation, what breed is best 

 adapted to the district in which you reside, but in order 

 to impress upon your minds the importance and interest 

 of such a study, and to introduce you to one of the most 

 pleasing and profitable branches of agriculture. I need 

 not tell you how we all depend upon the dumb creatures 

 which wait upon us during life, and at their death feed 

 and clothe us. From valley and hill, from prairie and 

 mountain, they come flocking in, the patient servants of 

 their imperious master. They offer themselves a living 

 sacrifice to the majesty of civilized man, suffering as he 

 yields to poverty, and hardships, and barbarism, and rising 

 as he rises into his conditions of luxury, and ease, and 

 economy, and fitness of purpose. 



The great community of cattle ! Who shall write its 

 history ! How it has been controlled by the social laws 

 which make the world what it is — how it enables the great 

 community of man to dwell here on the face of the earth 

 — how it stands the pedestal upon which a nobler fabric 

 rests — how its condition tells the tale of races higher in 

 the scale of being. That strange and mysterious relation 

 between man and animals, everywhere recognized, every- 



