STOCK HUSBANDRY. 235 



The value of the live stock in Maine, January, 1877, in 

 round numbers, amounted to $18,000,000 ; while the value 

 of all the cereals raised in the State, in 1876, amounted to 

 hut $3,507,840 ; to which add the enormous potato crop of 

 that year, and we have $3,698,840 more ; giving a total value 

 of all the grains, corn and potatoes of but $7,204,680. Yet 

 the hay crop of the same year, (the material for growing our 

 live stock) reached the enormous amount of 1,264,800 tons, 

 with a market value of $14,165,760. 



Thus we see that the State of Maine, occupying as small a 

 position as she does as an agricultural State in our country, 

 produces more than one twenty-lifth of all the hay grown in 

 the United States and Territories. This amount of hay 

 raised gives us three tons of hay to every horse, two tons to 

 every horned animal, and one ton to every five sheep in the 

 State, with a surplus of 184,000 tons. 



That this vast amount of forage must be fed to some classes 

 of our domestic animals, and all the manurial substances 

 utilized, in order to keep up the fertility of the soil and 

 thereby make farming a success, experience has fully demon- 

 strated ; and the salvation of Maine as an agricultural State 

 depends very largely, and I might almost say exclusively, 

 upon this point alone. Then the question arises : How and 

 to what kinds of farm stock shall the hay be fed? 



As horses are first mentioned in the columns of agricultural 

 statistics, I will also first speak of them here. Maine is 

 credited with having 80,100 of this class of stock, which are 

 kept at an enormous expense. Reckoning but two tons of 

 hay per head, per annum, at the estimated price, and we have 

 a cost for hay alone of $1,794,240. To this add the value of 

 other feed, which will amount to as much more, and we have 

 for cost of feed alone, $3,588,480. And what do we get in 

 return? But I fancy I hear many saying. How are we to get 

 along without the horse? In reply I will say, not at all! 

 We need the horse, but we need a different horse from that 

 generally raised — ^yes, I might say almost exclusively raised — 

 in the older portions of the State, and not more than one-half 



