MILCH COWS. 39 



advantage of every thing which in any way tends to promote it. 



Great reason has there been, therefore, to expect much improve- 

 ment in our dairy stock ; and if the course which has been pursued 

 i s the right course to effect it, then that improvement must of ne- 

 cessity follow. 



But how stands the fact ? The expenditure of money has been 

 enormous. Is the improvement which has been made in any degree 

 commensurate Avith it ? Nay more — has any improvement been 

 made at all? Many men, of large experience and observation, as 

 mature in judgment as in years,,incline to the opinion that there 

 has been none. 



Those who think, on general principles, that every generation 

 grows wiser than its predecessor, and that we are wiser in every 

 respect agriculturally than our fathers were, will probably deny this 

 proposition. Men who have paid extravagant prices for cows, and 

 believe that the quality depends upon the cost, will dispute it« 

 Those who have what is termed bloodstock — the meaning of which, 

 it is sometimes said, farmers are slow to comprehend, — and who 

 breed it for sale at enormously high prices, will dispute it. Inter- 

 ested individuals, in whatever way they may happen so to be, and 

 thoughtless individuals, who are always apt to take their desire to 

 have a thing so for an assurance that it is so, will dispute it. But 

 if the cows exhibited at our annual show are to be taken as the cri- 

 terion, then we have no hesitation in saying — no man can for a 

 moment hesitate emphatically to say — that certainly no improveme^it 

 has been made. If the milch stock of a large majority of the 

 farmers of the county is to determine the question, theii we have 

 made none. If the number of superior cows in any particular 

 locality, of any or all breeds, is to determine the question, then we 

 have made none. 



It is a rare thing to see a very superior cow at one of our shows, 

 — it is much rarer that the cows in our farmers' yards will average 

 above ordinary, — and those of the highest order of the very first 

 quality, were as frequently to be met with in 1825 as in 1855. It 

 is undoubtedly true that the product of the cows of the county 

 — numbers being equal — is much greater now than it was then. 

 But this does not result from any improvefnent inherent in the stock 

 itself, but is the very pleasing consequence of a wiser, more hu- 



