4G Reports of Committees. 



mother is more vigorous and the father more decrepit, the reverse being true of the 

 offspring of an old female and a young male. An animal born of mature parents 

 conies to its full growth and the enjoyment of its functions much earlier than those 

 born of parents still young. Lambs born of old parents were said by Columella, the 

 old Roman agriculturist, to have but little wool and that little coarse and to be often 

 sterile. 



But notwithstanding these exceptions, a knowledge of which is impoi'tant to every 

 breeder of pure stock, the transmission of physical and mental qualities from parents 

 to offspring, is one of those general facts of nature which lie patent to nniversal ob- 

 servation. Children resemble their parents. Were this law not constant, there 

 could be no constancy of species. "The horse might engender the elephant, the 

 squirrel might be the progeny of a lioness, the tadpole of a tapir." But a sheep is 

 always and everywhere a sheep, a man a man, a pure bred short-horn is the progeny 

 of short-horn ancestry, but though the species is always reproduced, the individual 

 may not be. Yet though the variations occur in the individual type, they are not 

 common, and we may look, in breeding, to produce like from like ; and it is of the 

 utmost importance, if we wish the best progeny, to breed from the best parents, 

 whose lineage can be traced back through a line of uncorrupted ancestors. ' ' Heri- 

 tage," says a profound philosopher, " has in reality more t power over our constitu- 

 tion and character than all the influences from without, whether moral or physical." 

 Tis but a few years since that the number of thorough-bred animals in Massachu- 

 chusetts could be counted on our fingers, now they number by the hundreds, and 

 every agricultural society in the state not only encourages their production, but 

 most of the societies are helping them round by abolishing the premiums on grade 

 bulls, and so discouraging the raising of animals whose corrupt blood may taint 

 that of the thorough-bred or their progeny. It is equally important that each 

 society should have a committee annually whose duty it shall be to see that every 

 animal entered for premium as thorough-bred has its lineage recorded in the proper 

 herd book of its race, if one is published, or so established by proper written muni- 

 ments that no doubt can exist of its purity of blood. Every owner of thorough-bred 

 animals should enter them with the Secretary of the Society a few days before the 

 fair opens, with a proper pedigree or reference to the volume of the Herd Book 

 where it is recorded, and the Committee on Pedigrees should, at the opening of the 

 fair, pass upon such pedigrees so that the list go into the hands of the^examining 

 committee for premiums marked understanding^, approved or disapproved. 



For the Committee, 11. Goodman. 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS, 



KrusT Division — Thorough-bred Bulls and Bull Calvfs. 



Durham hulls, H. M. Owen, Lanesboro, $10,00 



Z. P. Sears, Lenox, 8,00 



Ayrshires, T. L. Foot, Lee, 1 0,01) 



A. J. Bucklin, South Adams, 8,00 



" Dr. H. II. Young, South Williamstown, 0,00 



