Mr. Coleman, in his European Agriculture, says the most productive cow in butter which I have found was a north Devon, which for several weeks in succession, without extra feed, produced twenty-one pounds of butter per week.

Mr. Wainwright, of Rhinebeck, N. Y., made fourteen pounds of butter per week from "Helene;" F. P. Holcomb, of New Castle, Delaware, nineteen and one-half pounds of butter per week from "Lady;" the Hon. H. Capron, formerly from Illinois, twenty-one pounds in nine days from "Flora 2d;" C. P. Holcomb, New Castle, Delaware, an average of fourteen pounds nine ounces per week for twelve weeks in succession; H. L. Cowles, Farmington, Connecticut, sixteen and one half pounds in ten days. If the above record can be excelled by any other breed of full bloods that are recorded or recordable, we will yield the palm. We now come to the 4th and last proposition, namely, the "Devons" have been bred more for their intrinsic value and less for speculative purposes than either Short-horns or Jerseys. The first part of this proposition is readily proved by the fact that thoroughbred Devons from the best herds can be purchased at a much less price than other breeds of even less value, one reason being they can be reared at much less expense. The tendency to speculation in the American people is probably greater than in those of any other nation, and at present pervades almost every branch of industry, and the main reason why we hear so little opposition to this practice either from the pulpit or the forum is that too many men are living in glass houses.

I crave your indulgence while I make one or two illustrations. Much of late has been said and written by breeders of cattle and tillers of the soil against the policy of the State Agricultural Society giving purses to the owners of running or trotting horses, claiming its immoral tendency in fostering betting, gambling and deception. Now, I am not disposed to argue this question except by way of comparison. It seems, however, to have at least one merit in it there is no deception. The colt is purchased for certain qualities or formations which he possesses for a "trotter;" he is reared and trained for a "trotter;" no expense is spared in feeding, grooming and in procuring professional drivers to de

velop his speed; at our annual fair he enters the list of competitors for the prize offered to "trotters;" by his powers of endurance, his even stride and propensity to stay, wins the race; and we read from the bulletin board on the stand, 2:31. He is now an expensive luxury in which none but the wealthy can indulge, and is sold for two thousand dollars. Not for his qualities as a horse for general purposes, not for his kindness as a family pet; he took the prize as a "trotter," and was sold as a "trotter," and proved his ability before honest judges and gazing thousands.

Not let us for a moment leave the race track and take a stroll through the cattle department. From a large placard we read, Improved Short-horns upon a little card attached to the stall is printed, Duchess of Geneva, with her calf; we arouse this prodigy, and find him labeled Prince of Wales, six months old, weight seven hundred pounds. The hurried respiration of both dam and suckling indicate they are suffering from plethora. We ask ourselves from whence does this royal bovine receive his nourishment; the udder of the dam is small and filled with fat; no abdominal foramina or tortoise milk veins indicate that it had ever been distended with the lacteal secretion, yet the osseous structure of both is shrouded with fat; we exclaim, great is the mystery of cattle breeding. But this mystery is soon partially solved. A little way back from general observation, stand two first class grade cows that have acted in the capacity of wet nurses to his royal highness for the past six months, and they have proved their quality. We have hardly time to finish our observations. before the blue ribbon decks the horns of the Princess and the neck of the Prince, and these two animals draw from the treasury of the State Agricultural Society forty-five dollars as the best breed for general purposes; the young Prince is sold to an honest farmer for five hundred dollars, but the wet nurses are not thrown in; they are kept for another five hundred dollar Prince at the next State Fair; there was no betting or gambling in the transac tion, but there was gross deception, and the agricultural society, to use a legal phrase, is particeps criminis.

Now, for the benefit of all breeders, and in particular for farmers who purchase animals for this purpose, I quote again from

the Encyclopædia Britannica, article Agriculture, title Breeding, page 390:

We must here protest, says the author, against a practice by which Short-horn bulls are very often prematurely useless. Unless they are kept on short commons, they become unserviceable by their third or fourth year. Instead, however, of counteracting this tendency, the best animals are usually made up, as it is called, for exhibition at cattle shows, and the consequence is, they are ruined for breeding purposes. Care should be taken, in the case of all breeding animals, never to exceed that degree of flesh which is indispensable to perfect health and vigor.

Suppose some one of the members of the horticultural department of this convention should exhibit to us the seeds from a cucumber, taken from a vine that produced cucumbers eight inches in length, fit for the table on May 1st, in the same year they were planted, and this, too, in the northern part of Wiscon sin, with unimpeachable testimony of its truth; and as a matter of compliment to the members of this convention, would dispose of a limited number of these seeds for the modest sum of five dollars each. Now, the idea of cucumbers on the 1st of May. I think I would take one, and there would probably be others with more money, and not less credulity, who would make a larger investment. I turn to my friend upon the right, and say to him, "How is this cucumber business? Is there anything in it?" "Of course there is," he says. "The man that raised that cucumber is a neighbor of mine; he has one of the finest hot houses there is in the state; it cost over ten thousand dollars. He pays his head gardener $50 per month, and it takes as much fuel to warm the institution, in proportion to its size, as they use at the insane asylum, and it is a paying institution at that. He took one thousand seeds from that cucumber, upon which he will realize five thousand dollars. This amount will pay for his fuel, pay his gardener's wages, and leave a handsome per cent. upon his investment.".

Now with our facilities for cultivation, how many crisp cucumbers would grace our tables on the first of May, and about how many seeds should we have to dispose of at the next convention?

Is this picture overdrawn? Let us see. On the 10th of September, 1873, was sold at public auction the herd of Mr. Campbell, of New York Mills, near Utica, when 108 animals realized $380,000. Of these ten were bought by British breeders, six of which averaged $24,517, and one of them, Eighth Duchess of Geneva, was bought for Mr. Pevin Davies, of Gloucestershire, at the unprecedented price of £8,120, or $40,160. At this present time the intrinsic value of all these animals has been tested by the scales of the butcher, and allowing to each animal the heaviest weight, and sold at the highest price, we have a deficiency of $371,000. This is not all. Suppose we allow ten per cent. for insurance and interest on the investment, and we have a deficiency of $647,000 - $90,807 more than the assessed value of all neat cattle in Dane county at the last assessment.

Wall street has its bulls for gambling in gold and stocks, boards of trade have their bulls for gambling in wheat, and breeders have their bulls for cattle gambling, and the honest farmer pays the bills.

There are about seventy breeders of Short-horn cattle in the state, and over forty of pure blood Devons.

Now I propose to arraign the officers and managers of the State Agricultural Society for favoritism to the former and gross injustice to the latter.

1. In awarding individual premiums to all varieties of cattle except Devons, and thereby excluding forty breeders of pure blood Devons from competition at the state fairs.

2. In awarding premiums to a certain class of stock, without taking into consideration constitutional stamina, anatomical structure, symmetry of form, fineness of fibre, their qualities for the dairy, or any other desirable quality, except the amount of adipose matter they had been forced to carry by surfeiting at the meal chest, and then doped with saccharine syrup until an impaired constitution and impotency was the result, making it as impossible for them to produce a healthy progeny as a parent healthy offspring with a system tainted with scrofula, a gouty diathesis from excesses at the table, or a softened brain from the fumes of alcohol.

3. In (it would seem for no other purpose than to stigmatize the race) awarding premiums to animals called Devons, with black noses, black feet, black legs and black horns, circumstances as impossible to find among pure blood Devons as a leopard that had changed his spots or an Ethiopian his skin.

The breeders of Devon stock, many of them life members of the society, do not come as supplicants to beg for justice; they demand it; and can the State Agricultural Society afford to lose the patronage and influence of forty of the best breeders in the state and sustain itself? This question will be answered by the action of the society the present season. With equal privileges they are ready to meet all others in competition. They will meet them upon the fair grounds with their jars of golden butter and creamy cheese; they will meet them at the shambles with finely mottled sirloins that have always been the delight of the epicure; they will meet them with their flocks and their herds, satisfied to abide the decision of an enlightened public, fully believing "their castle's strength will laugh a siege to scorn."

Mr. Babbitt The reason some of the members of the State Agricultural Society insisted on giving a very little more to the Short-horns was, that there was so much more money invested in them, and so many more breeders. I don't think the catalogue will show that any great injustice has been done to Devons in

this state.

Mr. Newton From 1858 to 1878, inclusive, the agricultural society of the state of Wisconsin has paid as much in premiums to Short-horn breeders as they have to the breeders of all other races of cattle combined, lacking $130. If you will give the same encouragement to any one of the other various breeds of cattle that you have to the Short-horns, twenty years from to-day you will not find half as many Short-horns in the state as of the breeds you thus encourage. This society sets the example to the county societies, and in this way the breeding of Short-horns has been encouraged above its merits.

As to the milking qualities of the Devons, they are not to be