SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
99 
liable to have in this vital fluid an excess of only one or 
two needful substances, and a deficiency of all the others. 
Again, there may be a fiiir supply of some elements, and 
a deficiency or an excess of others; or there may be a 
general and equal deficiency, causing emaciation, and ul- 
timate starvation. 
Now, the improvement of live stock, and the improve- 
ment of civilized man, as well in reference to his consci- 
ence and reason as to his physical organization, have a 
common basis in sound vitalized blood. No wise man 
would hope to propagate, from generation to generation, in 
the human heart and mind, either a profound sense of 
right and duty, or great intellectual powers, in badly dis- 
eased bodies, laboring under incurable hereditary mala- 
dies. Hence, our daily food and drink, the air we breathe 
night and day, the houses we live in, and the clothes _we 
wear have a direct and important bearing on our blood, 
our thoughts, morals and character. Society has become 
exceedingly prone to vicious, sensual indulgences. That 
self denial which is taught alike by the Bible and by 
Science, has fallen sadly into disrepute. Virgil express- 
es a great truth in three words, when he says : 
“Facilis descensus Averni. 
“Easy is the descent to Hell.^’ 
Civilization must reform its dietetics and its morals, or 
its vices, crimes and follies will ere long exterminate the 
whole human species. Commercial cities scatter the 
seeds of contagious maladies everywhere among civilized 
nations, and all uncivilized people. Evil customs, habits 
and fashions spread much farther than any natural, or 
physical pestilence, on the wings of the wind. Educated, 
thoughtful young men are the persons to inaugerate, by 
their example and their social influence, a better state of 
things. 
It is evident that whatever improvement is attainable 
inhuman blood as appertaining to a race or family, must 
take place before this blood becomes parental ; for a 
change for the better after that time wall not influence the 
condition of isssue already born. In consonance with 
this suggestion is the well-known fact, that in the earlier 
stages of the existences of ah living beings, whether ani- 
mal or vegetable, their growing parts and functions are 
most plastic, and susceptible of melioration. “As the 
twig is bent, the tree's inclined.” Every possible im- 
provement in all agricultural plants and animals, and in 
all persons, which extends beyond the individual, to the 
succeeding generation, must not only be early impressed 
on the vital organism, but the impression must be deep 
enough to affect sensibly the after current of the living 
principle. Otherwise the impression will be as evanescent 
as the disturbance on the surface of srhooth water by the 
fall of a pebble upon it. 
To maintain and perpetuate any improvement in man, 
or in his live stock, the same agencies that cause the 
change for the better must be continued inactive force, or 
a relapse is inevitable. If one were to treat the greatly 
improved short horns, devons, or other English breeds, 
the same as their progenitors were treated five centuries 
ago, they would not only fall back to the condition of the 
native cattle of that era, but for a time become poorer, 
from their comparative inability to subsist on scanty and 
coarse forage, and their acquired tenderness of constitu- 
tion. The bovine aristocracy of the present day have not 
all the physical and vital hardiness, which breeding ani- 
mals ought to possess. Their food for many generations 
has contained an excess of oily particles, and of fat pro- 
ducing substances. John Bull has rather overdone the 
feeding part of good breeding. As fat race horses cannot 
run in competition with those properly trained, breeding 
mares and stallions have been more skillfully managed in 
propagating horses for the turf in England, than the stock 
animals belonging to any other species. Without a frame 
and constitution, vigorous and sound in all respects, it is 
idle to hope for any substantial progress in animal pov/er 
or vital function. The life of a species is not to be trifled 
with. Great Nature has her own laws, which man must 
study, and learn to obey. So far as this is done, a satis- 
factory reward may be expected. It is the end and aim 
of all agricultural science to increase human knowledge 
of the primary principles and elements of husbandry, til- 
lage and farm economy. Before one can surround every 
plant and animal, cultivated or grown, with all favorable 
influences, he must know what are the requirements of 
these living objects of his care, and sources of his profit 
Not to understand what they need, places one much in the 
dark how to treat them. For instance, about eighty per 
cent, of the blood of all mammalia is pure water ; and 
the muscles of man and those of his domestic animals, 
contain about seventy-five per cent, of this abundant con- 
stituent in all organized beings. Not to supply persons 
and live stock with plenty of pure, wholesome water is to 
commit a great error in their management. It is, however, 
possible for animals to drink more than health demands, 
especially when it has been too long withheld. In the 
humid climate of England, where turnips are fed largely 
to stock which contains some 90 per cent, of water, it is 
not uncommon for cattle and sheep to take an excess of 
water into the system to the injury of their blood. In the 
South and West both cattle and hogs often poison their, 
blood and have what is called cholera in some sections, 
and a disease in cattle known as “black tongue” in other 
districts, which, I have pretty good reasons for believing, 
are the effects of eating poisonous mushrooms. These 
fungi have been uncommonly abundant the past year, 
and wherever cattle and hogs have had a wide range, or 
have had access to these plants, they have consumed 
them with avidity. My own, I think, have been some- 
what injured by them. 
The every day food and drink of man and beas' receive 
less attention than they deserve, to secure good health, 
and prevent deterioration. It is impossible to unite all the 
freedom of wild animals with all the advantages of high 
cultivation. Savages sometimes attempt this, but they 
rarely fail to reap far more of the evils than of the benefits 
of civilized life, so long as they retain their primitive habits 
and associations. The half civilized people of this or 
any other country need the light of science more every 
year, in their own minds to protect themselves from the 
impositions of misapplied science in the hands of dishonest 
men. Where great skill and much learning are used to 
produce an attractive counterfeit, it may require greater 
attainments to detect and expose the fraud. Many scrub 
animals of no pedigree, and of no extra value, have been 
sold to ignorant farmers as pure blooded stock, and at ten 
times their value. Many worthless seeds and fruit trees 
have, in like manner, been palmed off as something extra- 
ordinary in their character. 
Patent manures, and patent machines have become 
very numerous, and demand a knowledge of first princi- 
ples for one to judge of their value. In short, a cultivator of 
the soil can hardly take one step in the improvement of 
his servants, horses, mules, cattle, hogs or sheep, nor in 
the improvement of his crops and land, in safety, without 
considerable study and reflection. The intrinsic value of 
Blood depends very much on a man’s knowledge how to 
use it. 
A steamship that cost a million dollars would be worth- 
less to one who could not sell it nor use it for some good 
purpose. It is a remarkable fact that many a youth does 
not appreciate the value of the parental blood in his own 
veins, and much less that in the veins of others. This 
want of just appreciation operates to prevent any high 
achievements except in rare instances. Thousands neg- 
lect their own duties, and proper education, in a vain and 
silly dependence on the v/ealth, position and Blood of 
