10 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
gious outside of them, appears to be Gonfined 
chiefly to the local markets within them. 
Such facts—if facts they be—and of them the 
writer has no doubt—might open a wide field for 
speculations in the future agricultural economy of 
our country, in the absence of other new dairy 
lands opening in the future at the West and 
North-west; but as this is no part of our present 
subject, wo shall not further notice it, other than 
by simply remarking, that our present dairy lands 
bid fair to be ultimately much more valuable than 
at present considered, when the demands upon 
their annual yield shall have crowded their pro¬ 
duction to their proximate limits. Understand : 
these dairy lands are not all productive alike. 
They vary in producing value, as much as our 
corn, wheat, or ordinary farm lands, according to 
natural fertility, location, or improvement, facili¬ 
ties forgetting to market, or otherwise, and may 
now range in value from twenty to one hundred 
dollars per acre. We note the facts incident to 
dairy lands, generally, to guard against the 
oelief, with many, that dairies can be adopted any 
where, and by any body, without regard to soil, 
climate, or position. 
Good pasture soils are usually good hay soils 
llso. Timothy, red, and white clovers, and red- 
op will flourish wherever the pasture grasses vve 
have named naturally grow. They form the best 
of bay for winter forage, and although they may, 
under ordinary usage, “run out,’’ after a few 
years, with the pasture grasses altogether, yet, by 
plowing and manuring, they will still hold their 
productiveness in hay for all coming time. Al¬ 
though not intending to now treat of the manage¬ 
ment of either meadow or pasture lands, as a sys¬ 
tem, we will remark that pastures, once well set, 
properly used, need never be broken up, for the 
reasons, that it take's them half-a-dozen years to 
get well re-seeded, and acquire a thick, heavy 
turf, and that the grass of an old sod is every way 
sweeter, and more nutritious than that of a new 
seeding. Of this fact all experienced dairymen 
are aware. 
We know extensive ranges of pasture, and 
mowing lands in our best dairy regions which 
have never been disturbed by the plow,, even on 
their first clearing—two hundred years ago, and 
down to fifty—the grasses having been simply 
sowed upon them with a first harrowed-in crop of 
oats, wheat, barley, or rye, and remained ever 
since in the full and profitable production of grass, 
either pasture or meadow. We are a much 
younger country than England, and our climates 
are unlike, forming, therefore, no exact parallel in 
the mode of cultivation which should govern 
them; but it is well enough to remark that in her 
best dairy districts, as Cheshire, Gloucester, and 
others, the lands devoted to that object have lain 
in grass from time immemorial—perhaps a thous¬ 
and years, and upwards. We know large farms 
in the rich lime-stone and blue.grass regions of 
the “Valley” of Virginia, and in Central Ken¬ 
tucky, worth a hundred dollars an acre, which 
have lain in grass, devoted to grazing of beef cat¬ 
tle ever since their first clearing—eighty years— 
and said to be at this day better than ever. We 
do not say that these natural grass lands will not, 
at some time, need re-breaking and manuring; 
but of the general policy of letting them lie in 
permanent grass, so long as they produce well, 
there can be little dispute. 
Saying thus much in favor of congenial soils, 
and the proper climate for the dairy in producing 
the lest butter and cheese, we do not deny that 
there are wide, and frequent districts which will 
produce passable butter, and indifferent cheese ; 
but they are of such character as to render these 
articles unprofitable as staples of their produc¬ 
tion. They can be better turned to ordinary 
crops, c raising cattle, feeding beef, breeding- 
sheep, and growing wool. So, then, let him who 
is about to embark in the dairy select the proper 
soil, unattractive even, though it be at first, yet 
by the proper application of labor, skill, and capi¬ 
tal he will find, in the course of time, that he has 
judged wisely to plant himself where the aid of 
natural advantages are in his favor, and he has 
only to apply his best energies to a successful re¬ 
sult. In our next we will talk of cows, and their 
selection. 
Improvement of Farm Stock. 
BREEDING IN-AND-IN. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
In the Ohio Farmer, of November 27, last, I find 
the following from the pen of Hon. Cassius M. 
Clay, of Kentucky : 
“ Breeding in-and-in ; that is to say, breeding 
to dam or sire, or near of kin, has been too fully 
discussed by some of the most intelligent men in 
this country and England for further argument. 
Its advantages are : 1st. It reduces the bone, 
and gives, to a certain extent, more fineness and 
symmetry. 2nd. It produces a tendency to ear¬ 
lier maturity. 3rd. It suits an indolent breeder 
—he gets at home what others go far to seek ; he 
chooses once for all, while others make a yearly 
choice through life 1 4th. It is urged as the nat¬ 
ural order. 
“ Its disadvantages are : 1st. It produces idio¬ 
cy, blindness, want of constitution, disease, and 
impotency ! 2nd. It takes away all the advan¬ 
tages of a wide and wise selection of superior 
animals. 3rd. It is practiced now and always by 
that large class of mankind who never have, 
and never will, produce anything memorable. 4th 
It falsely bases all “ improvement” upon feeding 
and shelter, ignoring selection of superior points. 
5th. It is not the natural order as alleged. In a 
state of nature the feeble creatures of ‘in-and-in’ 
breeding are driven off and killed by the superior 
types from all sources. When man attempts to 
keep up ‘ in-and-in ’ breeding he violates this 
great law of selection ; and Nature closes his false 
practice by impotency, disease, and death. From 
all which, I conclude the rule—never breed ‘ in- 
and-in ’ when you can get an equal animal of the 
same race, breed, or family.” 
To the above I must dissent, and, if the writer 
will permit a humble New York farmer to do so, 
I will take an opposite side. Mr. Clay is a gen¬ 
tleman, a statesman, a philanthropist, a farmer— 
four of the noblest qualifications which can be ac¬ 
corded to any man. lie is, withal, a capital stock 
breeder, and on his magnificent fifteen hundred or 
two thousand-acre blue-grass farm, in Central 
Kentucky, there is a splendid collection of short¬ 
horn cattle, of sheep and of pigs—all of the best. 
When he discourses upon any topic, I hear, or 
read him with great respect and attention, as I do 
now; but thinking him exceedingly hoisted on 
that of “ in : and-in breeding,” I beg the use of your 
columns, Mr. Editor, to express, most respect¬ 
fully to him, my own opinions in the matter. 
What is “ in-and-in” breeding, as usually un¬ 
derstood by breeders of “improved stock”—for 
I take it, that those who only breed “ common 
things ” either know, or care precious little about 
it, so that they only obtain the procreation of their 
beasts in any cheap and convenient way 1 As I 
have been taught, all the great and marked im¬ 
provements which have been made during the 
past century by the most distinguished stock im¬ 
provers in England, whether of horses, cattle, 
sheep, pigs, or poultry, and the perfection to 
which they have brought their animals, has been 
by a series of the most persistent course of coup¬ 
ling sire to daughter, son to dam, brother to sister, 
and any, and all other collateral relationships in 
which the particular qualities they desired to 
transmit in the offspring of their breeding animals 
predominated. Take the “ Stud Book,” contain¬ 
ing the pedigrees of the most celebrated “ blood ” 
horses on record, and you will find those of 
marked celebrity on the turf and in breeding, were 
frequently bred from the closest affinities in both 
sire and dam, even down to a late day. Bakewell 
—who is quoted by all as one of the greatest 
stock improvers of the last century, in the draught- 
horse, long-horned cattle,and long-wooled sheep_ 
bred in and-in without scruple, and to the closest 
connections, and persisted in it until in each of 
those varieties of stock he effected his purposes. 
He had a design, of course, and knowing what 
he was about, and how to use his material, con¬ 
tinued it so long as was necessary. His cattle 
to be sure, from being of the wrong breed, al¬ 
though perfected in that breed, were superseded 
by other breeds ; but his horses and his sheep, as 
he left them, now stand as models for every good 
breeder in England and have so stood since his 
time. 
Bakewell, in the outset of his career, saw the 
imperfections of the breeds which he wanted to 
improve, and in starting, availed himself of the 
labors of the “ improvers ” before him, such as 
they were, and obtained the best stock from them 
that he could, and then worked upon them for 
two score years, at least, until all the fine stock¬ 
breeders of England, who bred his kinds of ani¬ 
mals, had either purchased of him at high prices, 
or essentially followed his lead in the way of 
breeding their own. His rule was breeding “ in- 
and-in his exception, that of finding anything fi 
to breed to his own stock in the hands of others. 
He bred for symmetry of form and a high quality 
of fieoh, disregaiding ail else in his cattle and 
sheep, while his ponderous cart-horses hauled 
mountains of coal, and butts of beer, with ele¬ 
phantine carcasses, a development of muscle, and 
a beauty of form, which, at the present day, are 
the pride and admiration of the coal-dealers and 
brewers of London and Liverpool. He estab¬ 
lished in public approbation the present metro¬ 
politan draught-horse. 
Price, also, the most successful Hereford cattle 
breeder on record, until twenty years ago, whose 
prizes during his active life ranged in the first lists 
at all the shows where he exhibited, never went 
out of his own herd for a breeding bull or cow, 
for forty years, and when he retired, left the best 
herd of its kind in all England. His breeding was 
not promiscuous, letting all his things run togeth¬ 
er, as in common herds: but, like Bakewell, 
wanting to perpetuate, or improve certain quali¬ 
ties in his herd, he selected the materials having 
those qualities of excellence —not defect—which 
were required, regardless of close relationship in 
blood, and he used them with entire success. He 
lost, while perfecting form and flesh, neither 
constitution, size, nor stamina, but increased them 
all. His cattle were neither diseased, nor were 
they idiots or imbeciles, but models for other 
breeders, who eagerly sought his herds, and, as 
far as their skill permitted, followed his example. 
But enough for this once ; and if Mr. Clay, or 
some other opponent of “ in-and-in,” shall not 
speedily demolish me, I will say a little something 
hereafter about the Collings, and other noted 
Short-horn breeders of the last and present cen • 
luries. A Cattle Breeder. 
There is a class of selfish persons who only 
make friends to use them. If they can get nothing 
out of a man, they do not want his friendship. 
Such people treat their friends like cigars—they 
hang on to them, get all the good from ihem, then 
throw them away and spit affor them. 
