AMERICAN Live Stock. 
4G5 
considered, I wish here to note, and with somewhat of emphasis, 
that, with the exception of our finer classes of horses, the breeding, 
rearino: and cultivation of our farm stock has been hitherto consid- 
ered, by those not intimately acquainted with it, as an occupation 
of a rather vulgar order, and conducted by men of duller intellects 
than those engaged in professional, scientific, commercial or manu¬ 
facturing pursuits. Such a supposition is a profound and ignorant 
mistake, based only on an entire misapprehension of the study of 
animal physiology. The cultivation of domestic animals, and their 
improvement, through generations of their kind, into the admirable 
specimens which we now see, is as much a branch of the fine arts, 
applied to animal physiology, as are the superb specimens of statu¬ 
ary and painting which you to-day witness in these Centennial 
rooms, produced by the successors of Phidias, Michael Angelo, Ra¬ 
phael, or Claude Lorraine. 
Among the improvers of domestic live stock within the last two 
centuries, both in Europe and America, will be found men of the 
highest intellect, learning, refinement, position and wealth, whose 
studies have been drawn to the development and exaltation of the 
qualities of their animals. I need not recount the names of dis¬ 
tinguished Europeans, past and present, who have lent their influ¬ 
ence and labors to that pursuit; nor to Americans, from George 
Washington, of Virginia, Chancellor Livingston, of New York, 
Henry Clay, the great Kentucky statesman, and a large number of 
eminent men of all professions and pursuits, aside from enterpris¬ 
ing farmers proper, whose main business has been that of breeding 
and rearing improved classes of stock — names both dead and living, 
all too numerous to mention. Nor has the attention of those 
breeders and improvers been limited to the most valuable classes 
of stock, but equally so to those of minor commercial value. Wo¬ 
men, too, of equal rank and position in society with men, both in 
Europe and America, may be classed in the noble array of fine-stock 
improvers — all in their labors, benefactors of mankind. 
God has appointed our lot in a country of diversified climates, 
and blessed it with a wonderful fertility of soils. If a due improve¬ 
ment of our advantages be hereafter neglected, on those guilty of 
that neglect will rest the penalty; and yet, when another Centen¬ 
nial of American Independence shall arrive, we trust that those 
who then succeed us may rejoice, as we, their progenitors, now do 
30—A 
