20 



ADDRESS OF MR. LORIKG. 



explanation may not be inappropriate here. The pic- 

 ture of our so-called native cattle, which I have drawn, 

 is not inaccurate. Wlierever I find a high average of 

 dairy produce per cow, as in Vermont and Massachu- 

 setts, I find also an infusion of foreign blood, brought 

 here and planted on our soil, for the speciah purpose of 

 establishing a dairy stock. When, on the other hand, 

 I go to Kentucky and admire her herds of beef cattle 

 revelling in the rich blue grass pastures of that State, 

 I find that her farmers availed themselves of the patient 

 and long continued efforts of beef-breeders abroad, as 

 the foundation of their work. In the dairy herds of 

 Vermont may be traced the strains of Ayrshire and 

 Short-horn blood, which have entered the State from the 

 Scotch farmers on the north, and from the enterprise 

 of Massachusetts on the south. It is by the same pro- 

 cess that improvements in our cattle have been made 

 throu<]i;hout our country. And the reason is this : 



CD «/ 



Having no specific stock of our own, no stock devoted 

 to any special purpose, we have been obliged to look 

 elsewhere for it. Half a century ago, it would have 

 been almost impossible to have discovered what the neat 

 stock of New England was intended for, whether foi 

 beef, or the dairy, or for the simple purpose of consum- 

 ing the produce of our farms, or for all these objects 

 combined. The whole system of breeding — in fact, tbe 

 whole community of our cattle was in utter chaos and 

 confusion, out of which no man considered it possible 

 to bring order. Accidental importations of valuable 

 animals soon began to produce a very marked effect. 

 And observing farmers soon found that size, symmetry. 



