s, than by using
one for all, and towards such profitable employment we should
constantly aim. At the same time there is a large class of farmers so
situated that they cannot keep distinct breeds, and yet wish to employ
them for different uses, and whose requirements will best be met by a
kind of cattle, which, without possessing remarkable excellence in any
one direction, shall be sufficiently hardy, the oxen proving docile
and efficient laborers for a while, and then turn quickly into good
beef upon such food as their farms will produce, the cows giving a
fair quantity and quality of milk for the needs of the family and
perhaps to furnish a little butter and cheese for market.

Before proceeding to answer the inquiry more definitely, it may be
well to remark further, that among the facts of experience regarding
cattle, sheep and horses, nothing is better established than that no
breed can be transferred from the place where it originated, and to
which it was suited, to another of unlike surface, climate and
fertility, and retain equal adaptation to its new situation, nor can
it continue to be what it was before. It must and will vary. The
influence of climate alone, aside from food and other agencies in
causing variation, is so great that the utmost skill in breeding, and
care in all other respects, cannot wholly control its modifying
effects.

It is also pretty well established that no breed brought in from
abroad can be fully as good, _other things being equal_, as one
indigenous to the locality, or what approximates the same thing, as
one, which by being reared through repeated generations on the spot
has become thoroughly acclimated; so that the presumption is strongly
in favor of _natives_.

When we look about us however, we find, if we except the Morgan
horses, nothing which deserves the name of indigenous breeds or races.
The cattle and sheep known as "natives" are of mixed foreign origin,
and have been bred with no care in selection, but crossed in every
possible way. They possess no fixed hereditary traits, and although
among them are many of very respectable qualities, and which possess
desirable characteristics, they cannot be relied upon _as breeders, to
produce progeny of like excellence_. Instead of constancy, there is
continual variation, and frequent "breeding back," exhibiting the
undesirable traits of inferior ancestors. That a breed might be
established from them, by careful selection continued