95 



adapted to dairy purposes. We have now in this vicinity the 

 Ayrshire, the Jersey, and the Kerry, and it would seem advisable 

 to give them such a trial here as will show whether or not they 

 are on the whole better adapted to our purposes than the common 

 stock. At the same time, as the cattle of the county consist 

 mainly of the so-called " native breed," it would neither be prac- 

 ticable nor advisable to change it at once for any other. Such 

 trials should in the first place be made as will clearly indicate the 

 expediency of a change. But while experiments are going on 

 with the dairy breeds which have been described, certain crosses 

 may be made that would afford results tending to settle the ques- 

 tion of the comparative merits of the common and lately-imported 

 stocks. These crosses may be made at small expense between 

 the common cows and imported bulls. If the cross-bred progeny 

 should evince an improvement over the dams, it would be advisa- 

 ble to breed the heifers back to the variety to Avhich the sire be- 

 longed, and continue to breed in this way so long as each suc- 

 ceeding generation evinces an improvement over the preceding. 



Boston, January 15, 18G0. 



FOREST TREES. 



BY GEORGE B. EMERSON, ESQ. 



The forest is commonly regarded as of value, because it 

 affords materials for ship-building, for domestic architecture, for 

 fuel and for various useful and ornamental arts. But there are 

 higher uses of the forest. More precious than the useful arts 

 and more beautiful than the fine arts is the art of making home 

 happy, — happy for children and wife and friends, happy for 

 one's self, where all the wants of our nature may be gratified 

 and satisfied, — not only those which belong to the body and the 

 mind, but those which belong to the affections and the spirit, — not 

 only the want of food and clothing and shelter and the other mate- 

 rial wants, but those Avhich are brought into existence by our love 

 of the good and the beautiful. In every Christian home these 

 tastes should be cherished, as sources of deeper and screner happi- 

 ness, — more real, more permanent and more independent of the 

 freaks of fortune, than any thing which mere money can procure. 

 Of the materials for building this happy home, next to those char- 

 ities and graces which spring from the principles of the gospel and 

 are nourished by the side of the domestic altar, next to that art of 

 conversation which is the most precious fruit of a cultivated intel- 

 lect and the source of unbounded dehsrhts, and to that love of read- 



