I02 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE, 



Yet, meaning more to our future than any other single factor, 

 machine exhibits of New England fairs have been less in variety 

 and amount than is owned by the best class of our farmers. In 

 the West, where genius applied to farm machinery is doing its 

 best, not only are all classes of machinery on exhibit, but on 

 exhibit in action. The steam gang plow tracing its swift and 

 parallel furrows is seen, the power ditcher is doing its drainage 

 work, the cotton gin at real business, and all classes of machines 

 are seen in action, and no man visits a fair but catches the spirit 

 of modern mechanism in its relation to cheapened production. 

 Let us make the machinery department, instead of the weakest, 

 the strongest feature of New England fairs. When we do so 

 there will be the inspiration of a new agriculture for this section. 



Stock has been the central feature of New England fairs and 

 the study of fair managers, yet there is a relation of this feature 

 to the public that admits of improvement. An early maturity 

 class for steers will teach our youths the supreme importance of 

 producing so-called baby beef. The West has far outstripped us 

 in the art of breeding steers, and I recently noted carloads of 

 baby beef coming into Chicago from the hands of a few experts, 

 that weighed 1,200 pounds each for year-old steers. Such a 

 steer against a four-year-old — the age for equal weight here — 

 involves the saving of maintenance ration for the difference of 

 time required to mature them. Maintenance ration for a 1,000 

 pound steer is from 16 to 18 pounds. The Fat Stock vShows of 

 the United States and England have shown that the growth runs 

 down from two pounds per day for year-olds, yearly with advanc- 

 ing age to one pound per day for four-year-olds, while the cost 

 per pound of growth increases with size and age. The same is 

 true of swine and sheep. Beef is impossible in New England 

 until the lesson of early maturity is taught, and our fairs will be 

 the quickest way of impressing the lesson upon New England 

 feeders. 



The lesson that should be taught by the decision of the judges 

 is lost upon the public. If, upon a platform, the animal under 

 view could be scored for premiums and reason for decision 

 given, the importance of each feature in the modern animal 

 could be clearly brought out, and the lesson impressed upon the 

 onlookers. Judging would then become a school of education 

 to the public. The same may be said of fruits and vegetables. 



