112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



valuable to us, and from which we can select the ones best 

 suited to us, as the speaker so well said. I do not believe 

 a farmer can take a Rhode Island Red and a Plymouth Rock 

 and be equally successful. We should carry in our minds 

 continually the method in which they came, — the thought 

 of the men who have been behind the making of these 

 birds, the type which they represent. Mr. Cushman hinted 

 at that when he spoke of the beef type. I am going to put 

 against that the dairy type. You can trace it down through 

 the whole animal kingdom. I do not know but it is so with 

 man. When you find a producing animal, one always giving 

 out, you find the dairy type. When you find the type that 

 gathers in and stores up for its own benefit, it is the beef 

 type. Divide on that general line, then sub-divide according 

 to your fancy, and you have the breed best adapted to you. 

 First a variation, then a tendency, then a habit ; when we 

 get a habit we have fixed the type. It is the man behind 

 the breed always which fixes the type. I do not believe 

 every man is expected to be a successful hen breeder. It 

 takes a great deal of a man to be a successful " hen " man. 

 There is only one James Rankin on this continent. He is a 

 marked illustration of what man has been doing and can 

 continually do. I mention this because he has stimulated 

 others, and his influence is felt where he has never been 

 seen, because of his daily experience, his investigations and 

 the results which he has obtained, and the whole thing has 

 hinged upon his appreciation of the duck. A man who 

 appreciates a duck has got to be quite a man, I assure you. 

 If my wife were here, she would tell a story; I am glad 

 she is not here. 



In regard to roup, the killing of the first hen, the pre- 

 vention of the first symptom of disease, is the only absolute 

 cure. Down in Maine we cannot have open barns. I have 

 already seen the thermometer fifteen degrees below zero 

 this year, and an open shed would be hardly the thing to 

 keep poultry in. 



I was glad to hear Mr. Cushman emphasize colonizing. 



In reference to the matter of adaptation : John Randolph 

 would go half a mile to kick a sheep. He never would be 

 successful in raising young lambs for Boston market. There 



