ADDRESS OF MK. LORING. 



21 



adaptation to any peculiar want or purpose could be 

 obtained by a judicious selection of pure-blood. A lit- 

 tle herd of Devons, for instance, whose lineage com- 

 menced with the early days of agriculture in England, 

 was found to give new vigor and style and increased 

 value to the stock of the neighborhood into which they 

 were imported. A few stray animals from the Channel 

 Islands or the north of France, would leave a new type 

 and a somewhat improved one too, in the region where 

 they happened to land. The marked effect of Dur- 

 hams, as they were then called, and in later years, of 

 Ayrshires, of Galloways, and Holsteins and Herefords, 

 was so evident that even the most careless farmer 

 became anxious to avail himself of the improvement. 

 For he found in the confusion of shapes and sizes and 

 colors by which he was surrounded, that " blood will 

 tell," and that an animal intended for a specific purpose 

 j)ossessed qualities and powers unknown to any m^re 

 accident. The old-fashioned Yorkshire cow, the great 

 cow of the London dairies, whose immense frame has 

 served as the foundation of a most valuable rade of ani- 

 mals in England, did much to increase the dairy pro- 

 ducts of our farmers, belonging as she did to a race of 

 milkers. And it soon became evident that the most 

 rapid and economical way to arrive at any desirable 

 point, was to begin at once at the fountain head, 

 wherever that had been fixed. 



Whoever at tlie present day desires a dairy herd, can 

 fmd animals bred for that special purpose, for many 

 generations, on the farms in Ayrshire, and which have 

 been brought by care and cultivation to the highest 



