18 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
(TAiTUABY, 
[COPYRIGHT SECTTEHD.] 
THE BULL STABLE .— FeoJI A PaTSTIXG BY BkasC'ASSAT.— Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
"Who has not stood at the door of a bull stable 
and looked in- upon his Lordship, lazy and warm 
in his bed of straw, as we are supposed to see 
Monsieur Taureau here ? The soft flank, the 
gnarly massive neck, the wrinkled, curly, hair- 
padded forehead, the stout, short horns, are all 
so natural and familiar that one almost expects 
him to sway himself up, and then hollow his 
bi.vk, and stretch, and snuif. In standing near 
or handling a bull we have always the same 
feeling we hare in standing near a locomotive 
engine, or a steam boiler — that it is safe now, 
but a little indiscretion on our part might pro- 
duce an explosion at any moment. There is a 
wonderful amount of power slumbering in both. 
The bull maybe never so-sleepy and quiet, it is 
not safe to give him a chance to show himself 
wide-awake and able to use his power. To this 
end, while still a calf, or just growing out of 
calf-ship, the bull should have a ring put in his 
nose, and be always led by it with a leading pole. 
Notwithstanding the familiar look of the bull 
here pictured, it is not rash to say that his like 
was never seen in America. He is obviously of 
none of the British breeds : every point is con- 
tinental. Of the Continental breeds we have in 
this country, those which came from the north 
of France left their descendants chiefly in Cana- 
da. These somewhat resemble the cattle of the 
Channel Islands, (Aldemeys, etc.,) and are usu- 
ally marked by the mealy muzzle, which this 
one has not. "We have also the Dutch cattle, 
those of modern importation, having much bet- 
ter beef points than are here shown, and the 
descendants of the cows brought over by the 
earl}' Dutch settlers, in which the black and 
white spots are sharply defined, and which, in- 
deed, have something of this look, but are 
not so coarse as this fellow, handsome and pic- 
turesque though he is. "With the Spanish cattle 
of the South, he bears no affiliation. We must 
look rather to the common stock of the Swiss 
border for the model which the artist had in 
mind, or before his eye, rather, for this is no 
fancy piece. "We remember well to have seen 
animals very like him at the cattle shows, and 
in the farm-yards, and pastures of that French- 
German-Swiss region of the upper Rhine. The 
monstrous coarseness of the root of the tail, 
accompanying rather large head and great 
flabby dewlaps, is a marked feature of some of 
the large Swiss breeds. Their tails often stand 
up several inches above the line of their bacss. 
They are round buttocked too, and narrow 
above the hock. "We present the picture, how- 
ever, primarily as a beautiful and interesting 
work of art, and not as a model for the breeder. 
The Imperial Dahlia.— (Dahlia imperialis.) 
• 
All the double Dahlias of our gardens, whether 
of the tall growing or dwarf sorts, though they 
number their varieties by hundreds, all belong 
to one species, Dahlia variabilis. This species 
is rightly called variable, as it has run into all 
the sports of color that we can conceive any 
one plant capable of. Besides this, there are 
some half-dozen other species cultivated in 
European collections, but as none of these seem 
disposed to make double flowers, they have not 
obtained popularity. "We have been much in- 
terested in one of these rare species, cultivated 
this year by Mr. Henderson, the Dahlia im- 
perialis. This, like the common one, is a native 
of Mexico, but has quite a different aspect from 
that. It is a very stately looking plant, with 
palish leaves that are more divided than those 
