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lutely thought that it has been your duty ever since your boys 
came to know anything, to teach them the management of the 
stock, how to manage Hock, both in sickness and in health, and to 
know every thing pertaining to stock. How many of you farmers 
can tell me what is the arterial system of our horses, our cattle, 
sheep, hogs and every thing. 
I am happy to tell } r ou that the man who is talking to you, can 
answer you that question in a moment. For instance, you come 
home and find a horse is sick, and your son runs to you and says, 
“ Father this horse is sick; what is the matter?” You walk right 
up and tell him, and he says, u Father, how do you know,” and you 
explain it to him. 
If a hoy saw a horse rolling around in the stable a considerable 
time, and he says, “Father that horse has got the colic,” and 
the father could say, “no my son, it is pleurisy,” or something of 
that kind, and the father could teach the boy what to do to the 
horse, then the hoy would begin to have confidence, and there would 
be business connected with the farm. 
I tell you gentlemen, we ought to know these things ourselves, 
and if we don’t know them and cannot teach our sons the things 
which pertain to our business, it will be to our great disadvantage. 
If the boy don’t know any thing about it, and the father cannot 
tell him how the horse dies, the hoy says, “I tell you, if that is 
farming I don’t want to have anything to do with it. We must 
educate our boys in everything partaining to common sense as well. 
Five or six years ago I was in the city of Detroit with a load of 
long-wooled-sheep that cost me about fifty dollars apiece. There 
was a professor from the Agricultural College, Michigan, passing 
along with five or six of his students with him. They come along, 
and they looked at those sheep, and the professor told me that the 
boys had graduated, and were going to follow farming. I says to 
them, if they were ready to go on to the farm, I should like to ask 
them a question. I says, “I suppose all your boys can tell me the 
age of that sheep,” pointing to one of the sheep. “Well,” says 
the professor, “I don’t think they can.” Says I, “professor, don’t 
you know the age of that sheep?” “Well,” says he, “I don’t of 
this one”, but “I think that is a yearling.” “Yes sir,” I says, 
“but did you tell me that because you knew, or because you guessed 
at it?” “Well” he said, “I think it is a young looking sheep, so I 
