210 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
come under my own observation, I shall forbear to men¬ 
tion circumstances which tend to prove the great pow¬ 
er in the male as to influence in the progeny of the ewe, 
as I have them from others; and shall conclude with 
the sow. 
The influence of the male in this animal is as great 
as in the sheep. A few facts will show this. A friend 
of mine, soon after I commenced farming (thinking, no 
doubt, to do me a great kindness) made me a present of 
a sow of the wild species, in pig to a boar of the same 
sort. She was sent to me by sea, and during the voy¬ 
age she broke out of the crib into which she had been 
put; and when the crew attempted to replace her, she 
attacked them Avith open mouth, and forced them to 
take shelter in the rigging. I put her into a high wal¬ 
led field, where she showed every mark of a wild ani¬ 
mal, starting off at the least noise, and running very 
swiftly to some concealment. When the time of litter¬ 
ing came near, she set to work, and carried in her 
mouth great quantities of withered grass and rushes, 
till she had a heap the size of an ordinary hay-cock. 
Here she had ten young ones, so concealed that no trace 
of them could be seen. When the heap was approach¬ 
ed, she made a noise something like the bark of a dog, 
ran furiously to attack the person who had the temerity 
to invade her abode. In a short time the young ones 
made their appearance, they were all perfectly alike, 
being of a red or dark yellow colour, with regular black 
stripes, like a tiger or zebra, down the sides. As they 
grew old they became darker, till they resembled the 
sow, which was of a port-wine colour. When it became 
necessary to take them, the mother was secured by a 
noose thrown over her, and the young ones were hunt¬ 
ed down by a number of men. When escape was im¬ 
possible, they gave battle, and offered to bite very furi¬ 
ously. 
I now put the old one into confinement, where she had 
a second litter to one of the pigs, which were in all 
points like the first. I next put her to a boar of the 
Duke of Bedford’s improved breed. At once the litter 
had a totally different appearance; the pigs were all 
different from each other; some had a slight kind of 
stripe, some none, some were light, some dark. Those 
which had stripes when littered lost them, and grew 
lighter in the colour as they grew up. The leg had be¬ 
come shorter, as had the snout. They soon inclined to 
come out of the inside sty to the feeding trough, when 
the feeder put meat in it, and would feed while he stood 
by; and, lastly, they proved much better thrivers, get¬ 
ting very fat, which the old one and all the former pigs 
refused to do. I gave a neighbor a boar of the first lit¬ 
ter which he put to several of the Duke of Bedford’s 
sows, where the change was equally manifest; the ze¬ 
bra stripe, the long snout, and the length of the leg ap¬ 
pearing in the whole of the young ones. I was now 
very sick of the sight of them, and sold them all off 
My stock now consisted of a cross between the Duke 
of Bedford’s and Squire Western’s improved Essex, and 
were as fine as any I ever saw, being as remarkable for 
tameness and good nature as the sort I have been speak¬ 
ing of were for the contrary. After breeding from these 
for some years, they at last got such a tendency to get 
fat that they were entirely lard, and almost useless from 
being too fat. Pork at this time had declined so much 
in the market, and the prices were so far from remune¬ 
rating ones that I parted with my whole stock but one 
sow at what they would fetch, thinking the first loss the 
best. From this sow I had two litters (previous to re¬ 
ducing my stock) by the full bred boar. They were 
like herself, short in the snout, had very small ears, 
hardly any legs, and were so tame that they would eat 
a few oats out of the man’s hand who fed them. Hav¬ 
ing now no boar of my own, I had to look out for one; 
and being informed that a gentleman and neighbor of 
mine had a pretty good one, I sent a man and cart to 
beg the loan of him. I chanced to be in my yard when 
the man returned. My surprise was great when I found 
he had a beast muzzled and tied down with a quantity 
of ropes' - : and, on his being turned into the sty, he prov¬ 
ed to be a beast raving and foaming at the mouth, with 
long legs, a long snout, ears twice the size of the sow, 
and a long shaggy coat covering lank sides. In short, 
it looked as if my man had got a hyena out of Mr. Po- 
lito’s caravan, rather than a boar from my neighbor’s 
farm-yard; and, when put together, they by no means 
answered to the words of the old song— 
“ Oh, sure a pair was never seen 
So justly formed to meet by nature.” 
The offspring of this alliance was exactly what I ex¬ 
pected ; the cross had greatly increased the size, the 
pigs being longer than either of the parents, while much 
of the boar was to be discovered in them; the snout 
had considerably lengthened, as had the ears and legs. 
The whole of my breed were pure white, with hardly 
any hair on them. The pigs were some black, some 
.spotted and had a sufficient supply of bristles; and above 
all, they were lively, active, wild things, refusing to 
come near their food while any one stood by, and had 
lost much of the tendency to get fat. 
I have thus produced facts of the influence of the 
male on the progeny in the horse, the cow, the sheep, 
and the sow, and in all I have endeavored to show to 
the Society, that, whether that parent be the high bred 
one or not—whether to improve or to deteriorate—it is 
the male which has by far the greatest influence over 
the offspring. I would still quote one fact more, which 
has come under my own eye ; it is in the common fowl. 
In the year 1810, I procured a breed of the Malay or 
Chittagong fowls, and those I crossed once or twice 
with cocks of the same breed, got from different quar¬ 
ters. In spring 1824; they had been bred from cocks 
reared at home for three or four years, and were then 
all dark-coloured, without a white feather, having ei¬ 
ther black or yellow legs. Most of them resembled a 
partridge. At this time I learned there was in a far¬ 
mer’s possession a breed of fine Malays, which his 
brother (a surgeon on board an Indiaman) had brought 
home. I sent and purchased one. He was what cock- 
fighters termed “ pied;” or in other words, had nume¬ 
rous white feathers all over his body, with white legs. 
From this cock there were bred; in summer 1824, about 
seventy-eight chicks, of which number seventy-three 
were either pied or had a great deal of white on them ; 
and a great proportion of them had white legs. No¬ 
thing but the influence of the male parents could have 
done this, for the hens were all gallant hens, not a white 
feather was to be found amongst them; nor could it 
have been owing to their ancestors, for they had all pedi¬ 
gree as long as Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. 
Thus far have I stated facts which are known to my¬ 
self and friends only; I would nowmention some which 
are within the reach of all. Let us call to mind the 
offspring from the mare and the jackass. Is it not 
obvious to all the influence the male parent has on the 
mule? Colour, shape of head, ears, and whole body, 
constitution, even temper, are all derived from the male 
parent. I had an opportunity of observing the very 
same effects in the colt from a quagga and a mare, in 
the possession of the Earl of Morton, at Dalmahoy.— 
And his lordship, I believe, observed that the same 
mare, afterwards covered by a horse, retained in the 
progeny a resemblance to the quagga,* a fact of the 
most extraordinary nature.f I have been frequently 
told that a mule got by a horse, with the female ass, is 
a far superior animal, and retains the mane, with the 
ears much less, &c; but this is a fact I never could get 
to the bottom of. I only know it is believed by the 
Spaniards.^ Nothing can be more striking than the 
power of the male in birds. It is well known that bird 
fanciers, as they are called, put a cock goldfinch to a hen 
canary, and that way get a strong, beautiful mule-bird, 
having the greater part in plumage, song, and total ap¬ 
pearance of the goldfinch, and showing, to the most tri¬ 
vial observer, that the male had the greatest influence 
in the progeny. Every one knows that the hen of any 
bird will lay eggs although no male be permitted to 
come near her; and that those eggs are only wanting 
in the vital principle which the impregnation of the’ 
male conveys to them. Here, then, we see the female 
able to make an egg, with yolk and white, shell and 
every part, just as it ought to be, so that we might, at 
the first glance, suppose that here, at all events, the fe¬ 
male has the greatest influence. But see the change 
which the male produces. Put a Bantam cock to a large¬ 
sized hen, and she will instantly lay a small egg; the chick 
will be short in the leg, have feathers to the foot, and put 
on the appearance of the cock; so that it is a frequent 
complaint where Bantams are kept, that they make the 
hens lay small eggs and spoil the breed. Reverse the 
case; put a large dunghill cock to Bantam hens, and in¬ 
stantly they will lay larger eggs, and the chicks will be 
good sized birds, and the Bantam will have nearly dis¬ 
appeared. Here, then, are a number of facts known to 
every one, or at least open to be known by every one, 
clearly proving the influence of the male in some ani¬ 
mals; and as I hold it to be an axiom that nature never 
acts by contraries—never outrages the law clearly fixed 
in one species, by adopting the opposite course in ano¬ 
ther;—therefore, as in the case of an equilateral trian¬ 
gle, on the length of one side being given, we can with 
certainty demonstrate that of the remaining; so, having 
found these laws to exist in one race of animals, we are 
entitled to assume that every species is subjected to the 
self-same rules—the whole bearing in fact the same re¬ 
lation to each other as the radii of a circle. 
Now, then, to the point of expediency. Let us sup¬ 
pose that I have formed an erroneous opinion, and that 
other essayists bring forward counterproof, to shew the 
power of the female. What difficulties arise in chang¬ 
ing the whole females on an extensive farm, while with 
what ease a new male is procured ! Sir John Sebright 
says, “Many females throw progeny unlike themselves, 
and it would be wise to try them with a male whose 
stock is known previous to breeding from them.” How 
should we manage if we found it necessary from this cause 
to put away a set of females, which we had procured 
from a great distance, for the very purpose of improving 
our breed? If proof were required in a thing so plain 
to common sense, the enormous prices given for males 
in comparison of females, would show the advantage of 
getting that sex which can give the breeder a hundred 
of his offspring in a season in place of one. Another 
advantage is the letting out the males to hire for the 
season, a thing greatly to be wished the society would 
encourage, and give premiums for. The system is pro¬ 
ductive of the best consequences, a few of which it may 
be well to bring before the society; and be it remem¬ 
bered that it is only by the male, for a thousand obvi¬ 
ous reasons, that it can be done. When a person has bred 
or purchased a male, he not only does not like to put 
* The quagga is the species which links the zebra and the 
ass. 
f An account of the circumstance alluded to by the author 
is given by the late LordMorton, in the Phil. Trans, for 1821, 
p. 21.—(Edit.) 
1 If a mule be remarked in Spain as particularly neat and 
handsome, the muleteer will always say, “ Si, signor, cabil- 
lo estavo, padre Yes, sir, a horse was his father. 
him away, although he perhaps has found out that he 
is not well calculated, either as to cross or selection, to 
suit the females he has to put him to; but from the par¬ 
tiality which we all have for our own, it is ten to one 
but we think an animal, which, in truth, is of no value, 
to be a very fine one; and thus the breeder patters on 
with an inferior animal, instead of year by year select¬ 
ing such a male for hire as he sees would be best suited 
to correct the faults of his stock. Look to the good 
ai’ising in our breed of horses from this system, which 
in fact public stallions exemplify. Look how the dis¬ 
tricts in England where the practice of letting bulls and 
rams by the season exists, have far outstripped the 
rest of the island in the excellence of the stock which 
they possess; and let any one say if the benefit result¬ 
ing from it is not self-evident. If such a thing were to 
be introduced in Scotland, and I shall hope one day to 
see it introduced under the patronage of the Highland 
Society, it ought decidedly to be in the shape of shows 
or competitions. Then a spirited farmer, or a few 
neighbors, could join and procure a fine animal at an 
easy rate: then the ignorant pretending judge would be 
told the truth by the verdict passed on his property by 
the public, who would not spare either his veracity or 
self-conceit; comparison would teach all a better taste 
and judgment; fine animals Would be brought from 
England, and all parts of the country ; and rewards not 
only of fame, but of emolument, would be conferred on 
the man who paid the greatest attention to his trade, 
and consequently brought forward the finest animals. 
I do not think I can better conclude than by quoting the 
words of Sir John.Sebright, whose ideas on the subject 
altogether coincide with my own. “ There is, perhaps,” 
says he, “ no means by which the breed of animals can 
be so rapidly and so effectually improved, as by its be¬ 
ing the particular business of some breeders to provide 
male animals for the purpose of letting to hire. No 
trouble or expense will be spared by those who expect 
to derive profit, not from the quantity but from the quali¬ 
ty of the animals which they breed; the competition 
which must always exist between breeders of this des¬ 
cription will be a never-failing stimulus to exertion.— 
The common farmer, who seldom sees any stock but his 
own or that of his neighbors, generally concludes that 
his have arrived at the summit of perfection. But the 
breeder, who lets for hire, must frequently submit his own 
male animals to the inspection of the public, and to the 
criticism of his rivals, who will certainly not encourage 
any prejudices he may entertain of their superiority. 
Thus each, besides the improvement of his stock, will 
receive a fair remuneration; and every breeder have 
the means of selecting the male he thinks best calculat¬ 
ed for the females he may happen to possess.” 
I have now, I humbly conceive, shown not only that 
it is the male parent which is capable of most speedily 
improving the breed of live stock connected with agri¬ 
culture, but that the male is the parent, from motives of 
sense and sound polity, which we can alone look to for 
the improvement of our breed of live stock. 
[From the Journal of the American Institute ] 
To the Committee on Silk, American Institute: 
Gentlemen— The vast importance of the silk culture 
to our country, and the eagerness of the public to obtain 
information respecting it, make it the duty of every one 
engaged in producing a “silk crop,” to furnish his quo¬ 
ta of knowledge, that thus a mass of practical informa¬ 
tion may be collected, from which Ave may go forward 
with confidence, and gather in the rich harvest which is 
before us. 
With these views, and in compliance Avith the solici¬ 
tation of my fellow-citizens, I give you the result of my 
experience during the past summer. I would first pre¬ 
mise, that in making a trial of the silk culture, it was 
my desire to adopt a mode which could be followed by 
our agriculturists at large, rather than to show the 
greatest possible quantity of silk that could be produced 
from a given portion of land. Such an experiment, 
made under peculiar advantages of soil and culture, 
yielding a large product, might be viewed with admira¬ 
tion, but the means being beyond the reach of the mass 
of our citizens, the same results could not be attained. 
The field from Avhich the experiment Avas made, was 
situated in East-Hartford—the soil, of a light sandy na¬ 
ture, of a quality termed in that quarter, good corn land. 
It was ploughed about the middle of May, and harrow- 
ed and furroAved in the usual manner. The roots and 
trees (Morus Multicaulis,) were noAV laid down, and 
covered from two to four inches, the tops having a 
slight upward inclination ; they were placed about 
twelve inches apart in the row, the rows three and a 
half feet apart, having been previously moderately ma¬ 
nured. 
After the field Avas planted, a section comprising one 
eighth of an acre Was marked off, to be subjected to a 
more particular experiment. It Avas stocked with 780 
roots and trees, all of one year’s growth, having had 
their tops partially or wholly killed by the severity of 
the past season. One-third were two feet high, one- 
third one foot, stripped of their limbs, and the remain¬ 
der Avere roots Avithout tops. By the first of June, the 
new shoots began to show themseHes, and by the first 
of July, they numbered 4,800, and had attained the 
height of twelve to eighteen inches. 
A family of 4,000 worms Avas now started, which 
wound up on the 23d July, having consumed 131 lbs. 
leaves. Three other lots, amounting in all to 28,000, 
Avere now put out at intervals of several days, in order 
to favor the increasing growth of the leaves. By the 
10th of September, the last had finished their labors. 
