440 
WISCOJS^SIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
shall find little profit in root culture. I am in great hopes, now 
that there is a prospect of having experimental stations as fast as 
the means and men can be obtained to establish them, that Ameri¬ 
can seed growers will breed for quality rather than for size. It is 
a comparatively easy matter to “ improve ” a variety the wrong 
way; it is easy to take a sugar-beet and breed it back to a mangel 
wurzel. The reverse process may not be so easy, but it can be 
done. Our roots seldom grow so large or so watery as the same 
varieties do in England, and by growing our own seed and select¬ 
ing bulbs that will give us the largest yield of real food per acre 
with the least water, we may hope to make some real improvement 
that will far more than pay the cost of all our experimental stations 
for the next twenty years. We shall then export mangel wurzel 
seed to England and France instead of importing it. 
And I hope and firmly believe that we shall do the same thing 
with herds of sheep and swine. There is a grand chance for intel¬ 
ligent, skillful, scientific and honest breeders in this country. But 
we must breed for real merit and not for show. Our experimental 
stations must test our work as we proceed, showing us the right di¬ 
rection, and checking us when we are going wrong. 
We have, for years, been importing the best cattle and sheep and 
best swine that England could produce. We have been able to 
hold our owm in the case of pedigreed catcle. But we have not at¬ 
tained like success in the case of English breeds of sheep and pigs. 
An English-bred sheep or pig almost always makes a better appear¬ 
ance in the show-yard than the home-bred, even though descended 
directly from the very choicest imported stock. It is worth our 
while to ask why this is the case. Why cannot we succeed as well 
with English sheep as with English Short-horns? 
I think we may find an answer, at least, in part, in the fact that 
Short-horns have a recorded pedigree, the sheep and swine have not. 
The Short-horns are kept as pure in England as they are here. We 
compete on common ground. But how is it with sheep and swine? 
If I wish to show a sheep or pig at the Centennial, I am required 
to furnish evidence that it is “ imported or descended from im¬ 
ported animals, and that the home-bred shall be of pure blood as- 
far back as the fifth generation.” 
No real American breeder will object to this rule. With my 
own sheep and swine, I can comply with the conditions, but in reply 
