100 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
their parents and relatives. Important and useful as aids 
to farhigher efforts to attain honorable distinction, 
where they serve to satisfy a low ambition, and prevent 
due personal exertion, they are a hindrance to progress 
rather than an dvantage. Steady and persistent self-reli- 
ance often wins the high prizes of society and government 
in competition with the oldest and best blood in the land. 
A steed may excel in natural powers of muscle, wind and 
bottom, yet if he never runs, nor wins a race, the world 
will hardly give him credit for a capacity never exhibited. 
Talents that remain forever as barren as a dead fig tree, 
might about as well have no existence. It cannot be less 
important to improve one’s intellectual gifts, whatever 
they may be, than to improve horses, neat cattle and 
swine. To do this, a regular system in all studies, and 
thoroughness in the mastery of scientific prirciples, are 
suggested for your consideration. 
In conclusion, I will only add that you will probably 
be happier as well as wiser men through life, if you soar 
to the heavens in the pursuit of knowledge, instead of 
creeping on the earth in search of riches. 
BREEDING AS AN ART. 
Animal and vegetable life left to itself, seems to be sub- 
ject to a general law, that continually re-produees itself in 
the sameform in which it originally appeared. The hardy 
crab, gnarled and thorny, is the same in the western 
prairies, as on the eastern hill-sides— the same now as it 
was a thousand years ago— the same now it was when 
the stars sang together. Left to itself, it is unchangeable. 
But subject it to the control of man, and the rules of art, 
and the acrid, worthless crab, swells into the princely 
Baldwin, and Golden Pippin. The change is slow, and 
the result of much care and labor. It ovust be taken from 
the forest and planted in better soil. Competing trees and 
hungry weeds must not steal away its nutriment. With 
careful and generous culture, the fruit will be enlarged, 
slight deviations in flavor will appear to the critical and 
careful observer. The best of these must be planted and 
reared to bearing, and the best again selected, and so on, 
until the highest perfection is attained. 
Precisely the same law obtains in animal life ; and those 
animals and birds that are domesticated, have been, and 
can be, greatly and permanently changed by the breeder’s 
art, in color, form, qualities and disposition. The changes 
you desire will perhaps seem slow, but will be certain if 
the rules of art be steadily followed. But first of all, the 
breeder must have a clear and distinct idea of what he 
wants to breed, and this should be determined by the soil 
on which his animals are to be reared, the climate they 
are to inhabit, and the use to which they are to be put. 
For instance, the Durham, so admirable for the shambles 
and so well adapted to the luxuriant pastures of Kentucky 
and the prairies of the west, would probably find the rug- 
ged and scanty pastures of many parts of New England, 
insufficient to develop his rapid growth, when the sau'ie 
pastures would easily sustain the lighter, more agile and 
hardy Devon. Because a breed of anihials are adapted 
to, and profitable in one location, it does not, therefore, 
follow, that they will succeed equally well in other places, 
with a different soil and climate. The skillful breeder, 
who pursues his object by the highest rules of art, must 
thoroughly consider and decide on the result to which he 
wishes to attain. Does he wish to increase the size of a 
breed 'I This, perhaps, is easy. But is it wise and will 
it be profitable'? We should have no difficulty in increas- 
ing the size of the Devon or Morgan ; but when you 
have increased the size will you have ihe Devon streer, 
and the Morgan horse'? What you have gained in size 
you may have lost in symmetry, compactness, ease of 
motion and vigor. 
The question of size is of the greatest importance in 
breeding, and one in regard to which the inexperienced 
breeder is very liable to mistike, and the more so, as com- 
mittees and agricultural societies often foster and encour- 
age erroneous opinions on the subject. A great calf or 
colt, if very fat, is likely to get a premium— all can see 
that the colt or the calf is large, but all are not critical 
judges, and under a load of fat but few are capable of 
pointing out the defects in the animal. It is probable that 
every departure from the medium size of a race of ani- 
mals is attended with some loss of power, or at least that 
the medium size of the race should not be departed from, 
except to raise animals for special purposes. The draft 
horse for heavy weights must be heavy. But he will be 
slow, and will not have ease and grace of motion, nor 
will he have the iron hardihood and endurance of the 
medium sized horse. L., 
\ifi American Slock Journal. 
CHAMPAGNE WINE-SOME CURIOUS FACTS 
about it. 
Where one line has been written in America about 
champagne, an hundred baskets have been drank. It is, 
p:ir excellence^ the fashionable and the favorite wine of the 
Americans. Itis always on our dinner tables— we call 
for it from the frescoed ceiling of our New-York-hotel din- 
ing-rooms, till we reach^the outskirts of our Western 
wildernesses. We call for it in the cabin of the steam- 
ship, no matter on what ocean she is floating — we drink 
it at the head-waters of the Missouri, at the cataracts of 
the Nile, at the sources of the Amazon, on the vales of 
the La Plata, and at the .ffills of the Ganges. If there be a 
good geuius in wine (and a thousand inspired odes to 
Bachus have said there was) that good genius lurks un- 
der the champagne cork. It is a wine better suited to our 
climate than any other, for it has the inimitable gift of 
creating an impromptu inspiration ; and even when used 
with hardly justifiable freedom, the mists which it scatters 
over the memory ere more readily dispersed by a few 
hours of balmy slumber, and the invigorating breath that 
comes with the pure air of the rising sun. 
And yet we have taken very little pains, and had very lit- 
tle curiosity, to learn the origin and history of this unrivall- 
ed accompaniment to the scenes of joyousness and luxury 
that brighten and embellish our social life. We will fur- 
nish such a brief history of champagne wine, as the frnit 
of our observations in the champagne districts of France, 
where all the champagne of the world that is genuine is 
made, can give. Champagne is an artificial wine. Per- 
haps irwould be better to say a compound wine; for in 
no instance is it the simple juice of the grape, corked up 
after fermentation. It may, when well made, be quite as 
pure; but certain elements are combined in the manufac- 
ture of a fine champagne, for which we depend solely upon 
art. Therefore, the quality and flavor, and the value of 
champagne, always depend upon the flavor of the ingre- 
dients used in the manufacture, the processes by which it 
is carred on, and the skill with which it is perfected. 
There is no champagne of reputation that is made with- 
out being composed of a mixture of the wines of various 
vintages, or vineyards. 
All the champagne wine worth speaking ofin the world 
comes from the Champagne district, which is about thirty 
miles long and from one and a half to three miles broad. 
The river Marne flows through the whole district, aug- 
mented by the numerous trioute streams that come rip- 
ling down from the circumjacent hills. This is the only 
district of France where grapes are grown which produce 
a juice specially adapted to a champagne wine. There 
is, indeed, the sparkling hock of Germany, and the vino 
Asfi of Italy, both of which have, in a natural state, 
some of the qualities, especially the effervescing ones, of 
champagne. But, in no part of the world have soil, 
