ts. To buy or
breed common animals of mixed qualities and use them for any and for
all purposes is too much like a manufacturer of cloth procuring some
carding, spinning and weaving machinery, adapted to no particular
purpose but which can somehow be used for any, and attempting to make
fabrics of cotton, of wool, and of linen with it. I do not say that
cloth would not be produced, but he would assuredly be slow in getting
rich by it.

The stock grower needs not only to have a clear and definite aim in
view, but also to understand the means by which it may best be
accomplished. Among these means a knowledge of the principles of
breeding holds a prominent place, and this is not of very easy
acquisition by the mass of farmers. The experience of any one man
would go but a little way towards acquiring it, and there has not been
much published on the subject in any form within the reach of most. I
have been able to find nothing like an extended systematic treatise on
the subject, either among our own or the foreign agricultural
literature which has come within my notice. Indeed, from the
scantiness of what appears to have been written, coupled with the fact
that much knowledge must exist somewhere, one is tempted to believe
that not all which might have done so, has yet found its way to
printers' ink. That a great deal has been acquired, we know, as we
know a tree--by its fruits. That immense achievements have been
accomplished is beyond doubt.

The improvement of the domestic animals of a country so as greatly to
enhance their individual and aggregate value, and to render the
rearing of them more profitable to all concerned, is surely one of the
achievements of advanced civilization and enlightenment, and is as
much a triumph of science and skill as the construction of a railroad,
a steamship, an electric telegraph, or any work of architecture. If
any doubt this, let them ponder the history of those breeds of animals
which have made England the stock nursery of the world, the perfection
of which enables her to export thousands of animals at prices almost
fabulously beyond their value for any purpose but to propagate their
kind; let them note the patient industry, the genius and application
which have been put forth to bring them to the condition they have
attained, and their doubts must cease.

Robert Bakewell of Dishley, was one of the first of these improvers.
Let us stop for a moment's glance at him. Born in 1725, on