ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. I95 



in question. And, when eight months later the impulse to gore 

 returned the partial harmlessness of his condition became appar- 

 ent. 



The fact, which I deem indisputable, that this experiment 

 saved one human life is the best credential and argument I have 

 to offer of the value and practicability of the proposition of de- 

 horning grown cattle. 



Encouraged by one experiment another soon followed. 



This time about thirty head of young cattle were the victims. 

 Again the same lack of ill results followed. 



Next, about forty cows in milk passed under the saw. 



In this case a loss in milk was observed of about ten per 

 cent, for two or three days, after which the usual flow returned 

 and continued, more even in quantity during the remainder of 

 the season than at any previous time. 



Altogether about one hundred operations have been per- 

 formed by the writer, and in no single instance has any animal 

 refused feed for the space of half an hour after being dehorned; 

 from which the conclusion is drawn that in devastating influences 

 upon the animal the operation bears no comparison to the more 

 common one of castration. 



But say the tender hearted, surely it is a cruelly painful 

 thing to do. Other devout friends are just a little alarmed lest 

 in assenting to these views they may be caught charging the 

 "Great First Cause" with folly. All ask, "of what use?" 



No doubt in the aeons of the past, in the ages prehistoric, 

 wherein our good Bro. Darwin seems to think that he has dis- 

 covered his progenitors, and our own, in the fierce gorilla and 

 the grinning ape, when physical process alone settled the mo- 

 mentous questions of the " survival of the fittest," it did seem 

 good in the council of Omniscience to endow the bovine race 

 with " fixed bayonets," for their protection and preservation. 

 But when civilized man for his gain, threw his protecting arm 

 into the arena, the conditions at once began to change, and 

 horns began slowly, steadily to disappear, as if at the command 

 : of all creating nature herself. 



