the sensible, practical men of the age will appreciate your cattle and buy them. Let fancy breeders rope in the ignorant and silly for their victims, but the bubble will ere long burst. He who attempts to follow fashion-capricious, unreasonable, irresponsible fashion-will never make a successful breeder. Some of fashion's decrees are senseless in the extreme. For example, the imported cow Lady Jane was a half sister to Roan Duchess, a family so very fashionable now. She was imported by the Clinton (O.) Importing Company, bred by Mr. Wetherell, Kirkbridge, England, sired by Whittington 12,299. She is thus described by the historian of the importation: "In size she was above the average, a good head and shoulders, with great length of fore-rib, good loins and hips, a good feeder, and at the same time a wonderful milker. She was sold to David Watson for $500. She and the cow Fanny, daughter of Stapleton Lass, besides suckling their calves, which were in good condition, supplied the family with milk and butter. All her progeny were of superior excellence." Her produce are to-day among the handsomest and most useful in the land. Janes not as fashionable as Roan Duchesses? because fashion has not commanded.

Why are Lady Simply and only

"Like begets

2. Follow foundation principles in breeding. like; therefore never breed from a narrow-chested animal, though it be a Duke or a Duchess, and have a pedigree ten miles long. Remember the old Dutchman,-" Blank the degree-it's the critter I want." Many a man has ruined his herd by breeding on to broad-backed, round-ribbed, healthy Shorthorns, a thin-chested, tuberculous, high-bred Bates bull, because he was fashionable, and cost a great price; and the law holding good, "Like produces like," the produce was narrow through the heart and lungs, gaunt, and sickly. Breed for a carcass round as a barrel and square as a box, not flat as a slab.

3. Let us abandon and condemn all close breeding. The Jerseys are an example of it. Pent up on a small island in the British Channel, and bred closely for years, in and in, and over again, among and through each other, they have become constitutionally consumptive, and generally contemptible. Mr. John Thornton, the great English auctioneer, is of opinion that while science has been doing much for every other department of

human labor and progress of late years, not much has been done for the English Shorthorn breeder,—nothing gained in weight of carcass or milking ability, but mainly an accumulation of names in a pedigree; and the best English breeders are now abandoning all this twaddle about "pure bred" and "high bred."

4. Never mind color. The silliest, weakest, most contemptible of fashions is that for red. English and Canadian fashion is not so. The best cattle in the herd-book are roans, and the best cattle in the herds are roans.

5. Abandon the destructive practice of over-feeding breeding animals. Some of our best animals are ruined by being stuffed for shows and sales. The very fat cow or heifer, which, bought at our sales and taken home, proves a good breeder and gives satisfaction to her buyer, is the exception. Let the food be generous and sufficient, but not heating to such a degree as to induce abortion and final barrenness.

6. Weed out faithfully. Not the objectionable colors, but the thin-chested and thin-hipped, the poor feeders and slow growers. Weed all such out relentlessly, even though you have to castrate or knock in the head the 999th Grand Duke of Wheezledale, or the compound, boiled-down Grand Duchess of Barren Creek!

7. Have the best bull you can possibly obtain. It is unmistakably true that calves take their physical conformation more from the sire than from the dam. Too much care, then, cannot possibly be used in selecting a bull. This was Bakewell's theory, who was perhaps the most scientific breeder who ever lived. Robert Colling's words to Sir John Sinclair are,- "The calves of the improved Shorthorn breed, as well as most other cattle, take considerably more to the male than the female parent. This opinion, from many years' observation, I am well convinced of." The bull, then, is more than half the herd. He ought to come from no fancy herd where pedigree is made so much of, but from the herd whose owner is intelligent in foundation principles of breeding, and breeds good, strong, useful animals, without slavish regard to pedigree.

8. Don't depreciate other people's pedigrees and cattle. The probability is they are as good as your own.

THE THING THAT IS TO BE.

BY C. C. LORD, OF HOPKINTON.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.-Eccl. 1:9, 10.

I.

According to repute, the book of Ecclesiastes is thousands of years old. A book cannot live thousands of years unless it contains something of service to humanity. A man cannot utter

a thought that will live thousands of years, unless he is a skilful thinker. The above quotation from the book of Ecclesiastes was not a hasty thought. It was uttered after much observation and reflection. It embodies a truth that has been asserted numberless times in history. What is this truth?

It were absurd to say that no particular thing in the world is ever new. In one sense, the world is renewing itself every day.

Society also finds new applications of old things. Yet it is logically true that there is nothing new under the sun. The cause, means, and effect of everything are essentially the same in all ages. The fundamental operative principle of things has never changed since the dawn of history, and there is no evidence that it will change in the future. This uniformly operative principle is also a governing one. It controls. Whoever expects to succeed must be willing to be a subject of its control. Not being a subject of its control, every one sees his own work perish.

II.

What has the foregoing to do with agriculture? It has everything to do with it. Agriculture is a part of the life of the world. The life of the world is physical, mental, industrial, social, political, etc. Agriculture, as a part of the world's life, is poten

tially involved in all the world's general, vital phases. As is the world, so is agriculture; as is agriculture, so is the world. All the affairs of the world's life jog along together. The same dominant principle rules them all. To comprehend one thoroughly, one must have an inkling of all the rest; without an inkling of all the rest, one cannot understand any of them. This fact is also as old as the world.

There is a more emphatic reason for what we assert. It is emphatic because there is such a thing as agricultural progress. We can learn more and do better. Like everything else, agriculture can be improved. It can be improved as a physical, mental, industrial, social, and political factor of human history. But it must advance in common with everything else, and according to a dominant principle operative from the beginning. In this, the thing that has been is the thing that shall be.

III.

Specifically, agriculture is tilling the ground; functionally, agriculture is of the earth, earthy. We mean this in no derogatory sense. We only assert that, specifically, agriculture has a sphere peculiarly its own. Different vocations have different functionalities. Being legitimate, they are mutually dependent, but they cannot experimentally run far into each other. A force, to be a force, must have a distinct identity. To be an efficient factor of the world's life, agriculture must be something that nothing else is. This is true from old time, and to all future time. Agriculture is now the same that it ever was, except that it makes a better assertion of its own identity as a social factor than it ever did before. Let us seek to illustrate this manifestation of identity.

We said agriculture is of the earth, earthy. It develops productiveness in the earth. In itself, the earth is material and crude. Manipulation of the earth implies contact with crude materials. The successful accomplishment of any object implies adequate means. Special adaptation alone is adequate to a successful procedure from cause to effect. Direct industrial contact with the crude earth implies a corresponding individual constitution and temperament. The operative agriculturist must be born, not made. He must have a strong frame, moderate