210 Transactions of the American Institute. 



famous for raising, such as the Fabii, the Lentuh', and Cicerones. 

 These were the days of Roman agricultural glory. Cato says : 

 " When they praised a good man they called him an agriculturist 

 and a husbandman ; and it was deemed a great honor to be thus 

 spoken of." Cincinnatus, who tiourished 460 years before Christ, was 

 the plowman of his own four acres ; and when the Lamnite embassa- 

 dors visited Curtius Dentatus, they found him at work among his 

 vegetables. Cato says '. " Study to have a large dunghill ;" and to 

 this I would add : Treat your dumb laborers as inferior brothers, 

 deprived of speech. There are a number of topics to which I would 

 call the attention of this cinb. The society, of which I have the 

 honor to be the president, has of late oifered, in connection with this 

 •clnb, a reward of $100 for some invention more suitable and painless 

 to oxen than the yoke in common use. The mode of fastening by 

 attaching the yoke to the horns of the oxen is open to a serious 

 objection. In some parts of the country where flies abound, the ani- 

 mal is unable, by shaking his head, to rid himself of these annoyances. 

 Where flies are not troublesome, this mode may be the best. As to 

 the use of blinds on horses, is it not a practice that injures the sight 

 of this noble animal, and does it not render him more timerous and 

 dangerous than to allow him the full use of his organs of vision ? 

 Another suggestion : Why, for the sake of what we conceive to be a 

 finer cari'iage of the head, do we so habitually chafe and torture our 

 horses by the use of a check-rein ? In Russia, where I passed many 

 years of my life, such a thing is never used as a blind or a check- 

 rein. Can we not also improve upon the material and form of the 

 iron bit, so as not to lacerate the mouth and bruise the tongue, and 

 particularly in winter, when the iron is intensely cold, consider the 

 cruelty of putting into his uKiuth a piece of iron that will freeze and 

 flay the tongue i 



Modern art has made sucli advances in a knowledge of pain-killers 

 that it would be easy to put in a state of insensibility those parts of 

 an animal to which for any reason we have occasion to apply the 

 knife. Is this ever done ? Why are all so slow in introducing these 

 obvious and natural humanities? I have observed, gentlemen, that 

 you sometimes discuss the best wash for protecting your orchards 

 from grubs and insects. Human itr to all the birds of tlie air is the 

 best lotion. The wash costs nothing, the want of it, the wanton 

 killing of birds by thoughtless l)oys and cruel men, is the reason why 

 the black knot and the curculio have robbed us of millions of bushels 



