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KEPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON BULLS. 



The committee were pleased with the exhibition of bulls, 

 especially the Jerseys belonging to George H. Hitchcock, of 

 Quincy, and the Holsteins of Walton Hall, of Marshfield. We 

 here see pedigree stock, the thing that is needed for the 

 breeder, as in the breeding of stock it is very essential to look 

 to the qualities of the male and his ancestry, — what their butter 

 or milk qualities were. Darwin says : " The whole subject of 

 inheritance is wonderful ; when a new character arises, what- 

 ever its nature may be, it generally tends to be inherited." 

 Again he says ; " Looking to the Old World, in the Sahara 

 Desert, the Touareg is as careful in the selection' of his breed- 

 ing Mahari (a fine race of the dromedary) as the Arab is in 

 that of his horse. The pedigrees are handed down, and 

 many a dromedary can boast a genealogy far longer than the 

 descendants of the Darley Arabian." Moses says : " Thou 

 shalt not breed thy cattle with a diverse kind." Pliny men- 

 tions that King Phyrrus had an especially valuable breed of 

 oxen, and he did not suffer the bulls and cows to come together 

 till four years old, that they might not degenerate. Virgil, in 

 his Georgics (lib. Ill) advises carefully to select the breeding 

 stock, " to note the tribe, the lineage and the sire, whom to 

 reserve for husband of the herd." 



We will follow Virgil's advice, although going back to one 

 -who flourished two thousand years ago. We take that depart- 

 ment of dairying, — butter : first, we note the tribe : Jersey — 



