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mer ought to be able to annually exchange bucks with his 

 neighbors, but this cannot be done under the present condi- 

 tion of wool growing in most counties of the State. More 

 attention must be given to breeding animals, and he was glad 

 to learn that the Wayne county society was importing ani- 

 mals from which other counties would, in time, be so largely 

 benefited. 



He concurred in the views just expressed by Mr. Fletcher, 

 as to the comparative decrease of cattle in this State, and the 

 propriety of increasing largely that stock. There was a rea- 

 son, however, for that decrease. Hogs are easily raised, and 

 require less outlay in preparing to raise them. They are 

 soon brought into market, and now pay so well that those 

 farmers, and the proportion of them was a very large one, 

 who not being prepared to shelter and feed sheep and cattle, 

 turn their attention to hog raising. To raise stock profitably, 

 besides the winter pastures and meadows we spoke about for 

 two meetings past, sheds and stables must be prepared, for 

 sheep and cattle must be protected from the cold, chilling 

 rains of the winters of this latitude. Mr. Fletcher had re- 

 ferred to the prosperous condition of the cattle raisers in 

 Parke and Putnam, and favorably contrasted it with those 

 who raise corn and hogs in the richer lands of other counties. 

 He not only concurred in this opinion of the profitableness 

 of cattle raising, but ventured the prediction, that the rolling 

 clay soils, although so much less fertile, would ultimately 

 prove the most lucrative from that very cause, for the reason, 

 that after the soil was impoverished by corn raising, the 

 grasses and other stock, besides hogs, would have to be per- 

 manently resorted to, that their fertility might be restored. 

 Then farmers would prepare the requisite sheds and stabling, 

 and when once fixed for stock raising, they never would 

 abandon it. 



Gov. Wright remarked he had no doubt that at this time 

 ten thousand dollars might be most profitably laid out in the 

 purchase of breeding animals for this State. He had seen 



