146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Grass grows abundaDtly with us and we can well afford to 

 keep plenty of good oxen, beef cattle and cows. I cut the 

 first fifty tons of my hay at less than one dollar per ton, and 

 I ask the farmers of Aroostook what branch of fiirmins; can 

 be pursued where they can get one-fourth the profit I can by 

 my hay. There need not be a ton of good hay cut in Aroos- 

 took that will not pay eight dollars per ton, if cut well and 

 at a proper time. Years ago farmers were not ashamed 

 to take a yoke of cattle and go to mill or haul their produce 

 to market, but now it is different. A farmer now would 

 rather hoe potatoes than take a yoke of oxen and drive ten 

 miles to a village, but he will take a pair of horses and drive 

 them that distance and seem to relish it greatly. He should, 

 on the contrary, feel proud of a good yoke of eight feet 

 Durham or Hereford cattle. 



In regard to sheep raising, I notice that everybody who 

 has spoken has an idea that our county is well adapted to the 

 raising of sheep. I think it is so, but in order to raise sheep 

 successfully it must be managed as a business, carefully. 

 We have a disadvantage here which you do not have on the 

 sea shore, and that is in regard to green feed. With you on 

 the seaboard, during the winter, the sheep can get more or 

 less green grass, while here, from about the first of Decem- 

 ber to the middle of April they do not get a green thing. 

 Our farmers have never made any preparation to feed their 

 sheep anything but dry hay and dry provender during the 

 winter. This is a mistake. They require a change of diet. 

 In Canada you all know they raise ruta bagas in large quanti- 

 ties to feed their sheep with in the winter. Last winter I 

 harvested about one hundred bushels. Every farmer can 

 raise them as well as not, if he will, and twelve hundred 

 bushels of turnips would be a great help towards carrying 

 through two or three hundred sheep, and in the spring those 

 same sheep would be good mutton. We should bear this in 

 mind. I think that sheep have need of green feed in the 

 winter. 



