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The writer of this report has the highest possible respect for 

 the Board of Agriculture of Massachusetts, and its reports are 

 his most valued resources for encouragement and information ; 

 but he respectfully submits that through the various instrumen- 

 talities which have been at work in the last thirty years, among 

 which the Board of Agriculture is honorably conspicuous, so 

 much attention has been called, and so much information has 

 been spread with regard to the improvement of stock, that the 

 Massachusetts farmer of to-day may be safely entrusted with the 

 choice of the best means for the formation and perpetuation of a 

 breed of cattle, " Native and to the manor born," and better 

 adapted to the needs of lAiassachusetts husbandry than any of the 

 breeds of England, Scotland, Holland, or the Channel Islands. 



No doubt many a scrub bull is raised because he cannot be fat- 

 ted for the butcher, but farmers know this, and know that if they 

 use an unknown bull they do so at their peril. And how much 

 better are they off if they pay a fancy price for a thoroughbred? 

 All the varieties of so-called thoroughbred stock have, in their 

 early history, attained a certain reputation for superiority in cer- 

 tain valuable properties, or for adaptation to certain localities and 

 conditions ; but as soon as their recognition as a breed is effect- 

 ed, these practical advantages become altogether secondary to 

 certain fanciful markings, such as a solid color, a black tongue, a 

 flesh colored nose, or white face and feet ; and males are selected 

 and used chiefly on account of their possession of power to trans- 

 mit these " Fancy points." In the meantime surplus bull calves, 

 however worthless, are raised and sold for the improvement of 

 the native stock, as prescribed by the Board of Agriculture, and 

 if one farmer uses a Jersey bull to raise veal calves and beef cat- 

 tle in the Connecticut Valley, and another uses a Holstein to be- 

 get cows for making butter on dry hill pastures, they may both 

 receive the Society premium for their judicious conduct ; while 

 the farmer who uses a grade animal, however admirable individ- 

 ually, and deriving his merits immediately from an ancestry 

 known for a long series of generations to combine precisely the 

 qualities most desirable in his owner's circumstances, is branded 

 as an old fashioned ignoramus, because his animal's pedigree is 

 not recorded in a Herd Book, which, after all, is only a collect- 



