4:72 Transactions of the American Institute. 



rightly, is a life of great enterprise and activity. You live faster, 

 accomplish more in a short time, and sometimes lose quicker than 

 we do. I have been charmed with the evidence of a general appre- 

 ciation of the value of knowledge, but it is in your very natures 

 and necessities to prefer practical and readily available knowledge. 

 You can command an almost limitless space — limitless in relation 

 to your numbers at present — and to drive the mighty engine of pro- 

 gress and civilization at the pace you wish it driven, it is essential 

 to have ready and efficient power. 



It is this that encourages me to hint at, for, having to be brief, 

 I cannot speak satisfactorily of means which are destined to favor 

 the rapid increase in the number of your animals — means neglected, 

 though needed and beneficial to the whole world, and which in the 

 first instance are calculated to satisfy your wants and enhance your 

 prosperity. If that man is a benefactor to the human race who 

 makes two blades of grass grow where there was once but one, 

 Low much more is he likely to benefit humanity if he saves that 

 force, preserves that life which has availed itself of the blades of 

 «Tass, and has molded them to the wants and desires of his fellow 

 laen. 



Li fertile spots of the country, where the grass may be tied over 

 the back of a horse, the problems calculated to interest you are 

 those which refer to the conversion of vegetable into animal matter. 

 !Che conversion can only take place by increasing the reproductive- 

 iiess, the health and the vigor of animals. We must prolong their 

 lives, or we must so utilize them that the full benefit of the land's 

 produce may be felt by mankind. Amid plenty we are in want, 

 and there is no better illustration of human weakness and the folly 

 of human ignorance than the exuberance of life in one part of 

 the globe, the abundance in certain regions, as contrasted with the 

 want, the povea-ty, the hunger in others. 



Since I landed in New York, I have been asked many questions 

 concerning maladies which materially interfere with the increase 

 and improvement of live stock in this and other States. It may 

 seem to some that from the fact that there are more animals than 

 can be eaten in the New "World, a few lives more or less are of 

 little moment; but there are those present who will bear me out 

 in the statement that the losses are falling and have fallen veiy 

 heavily on the most enterprising of your stock raisers; and eiiter- 

 prisino' men in this country go on and accumulate wealth, and with 

 their experience and ready cash, move on to new and fresh fields 



