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capacity to produce milk, butter, or beef, in proportion to the food 

 consumed, there is far more difference between individuals of one 

 breed than there is between average animals of different breeds ; 

 and that in purchasing a bull, the qualities of that bull's immediate 

 relatives are of much greater importance to the practical farmer than 

 the purity of his descent or the regularity with which that descent is 

 recorded in the Herd-Book. 



We believe that this opinion is gaining ground with practical 

 farmers ; and we also think that, while there is far more care in the 

 selection of bulls for breeding purposes, there is less and less atten- 

 tion paid to the subject of purity of breed and correctness. of regis- 

 tration ; and this, from a farmer's standpoint, is as it should be. 



The average farmer can easily ascertain and intelligently weigh 

 the qualities of the sire, dam and grandparents of a calf born in his 

 own or a neighbor's herd, while all he learns from the Herd-Book is 

 that the animal offered is directly descended, through a long line of 

 ancestry bred chiefly for fancy points and speculative purposes, from 

 stock no better, if as good for his uses, than the animals on his and 

 adjoining farms. 



I would not be understood as depreciating the benefits the farmers 

 of the United States have derived from the use of bulls of the im- 

 proved breeds, but I feel sure that the farmers of Hampshire County 

 now have a class of cattle equal it not superior, for their purposes, 

 to any of the imported breeds ; and that the time, care and money 

 usually expended in getting a so-called thoroughbred bull, might be 

 more profitably laid out in securing from a neighboring herd an 

 animal of whose merits and ancestry the average farmer is far better 

 able to judge. " 



If and whenever this opinion becomes general, it will probably 

 result in the repeal of the edict of that eminently representative 

 council, the State Board of Agriculture, against the award of pre- 

 miums to grade bulls. 



JOHN C. DILLON. 

 Amherst, October 30, 1890. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FARM CROPS. 



The acre of corn I offer is grown on a sandy loam. This land pro- 

 duced about a ton of hay to the acre in 1889. Between May 13 and 15, 

 1890, about 4 cords of coarse barn manure was spread, and May 19, 

 plowed in 6 inches. About 3 cords of well rotted compost from the 



