2 MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY. 



monwealth. Most of the reports relate to the care of the hnport- 

 ed Stock, and the purchase and care of the best native Stock, to 

 be improved by crossing. 



If it be true that he who makes two blades of grass grow, where 

 only one grew before, is a benefactor to his race, surely he who, 

 by skill and management in the economy of animal nature, ob- 

 tains from the same quantity of grass two quarts of milk, where 

 only one was had before, confers a greater blessing. No one 

 can doubt that, by observation and patient experience, the races 

 of animals which man has reduced to his own use, may, by care 

 through successive generations, be reared and bred for particular 

 purposes. In confirmation of this, those who are old enough 

 may remember the long wool scantily spread over the lank body 

 and long limbs of the native sheep, so called, being the only 

 sheep, some thirty years ago, to be seen at Brighton, and contrast 

 them with the smaller and more compact bodies with their 

 thicker and finer fleeces, by a cross with the Merino, now the 

 only sheep to be seen there, and they will feel assured that, by 

 time and care, a race of animals may be entirely changed. This 

 proof of the value of importing males is conclusive. A Merino 

 ram of the same character in form, fleece and blood, which, 

 when they were first imported, would bring one thousand and 

 even fifteen hundred dollars, is not now worth more than one 

 fortieth part of a thousand dollars. 



The power to breed animals for particular qualities is most 

 striking, and has been exercised with the greatest success in 

 the horse and dog, and their value is more determined by the 

 purity of the blood than by any other single character. Our 

 farmers adopt the principle in their sheep and their swine. The 

 extension of the knowledge of the Merino sheep, and the Mac- 

 kay breed of swine, was as widely diffused as possible, by the 

 offers and awards of premiums upon them by the Massachusetts 

 Society for promoting Agriculture ; nevertheless, there seem to 

 be many practical doubters, among the farmers, of the success 

 of the same principle in regard to cows. Very few, indeed, have 

 ever preserved a breed pure, long enough to test its properties. 

 In the 4th volume, page 153, of the society's publications, there 

 is an article by Dr. Parry, on crossing the breed of animals, in 



