350 BOARD OF AQRICULTURE. 



for your cattle to produce the returns which constitute your profits, 

 they don't always find enough tofill them. They sometimes go 

 less than half loaded, and taking the whole year together, they 

 don't gain so very much above their running expenses. My advice 

 is that you go directly home, and mightily improve your pastures 

 forthwith, or else reduce your trains of four-logged cars enough 

 so that what are left will carry full freights for half the year at 

 least." 



It would be easy to go on multiplying illustrations, but my sole 

 object is to draw attention to the importance of studying out and 

 learning what crops and what products can be produced at least 

 relative cost, and by what methods, so as to secure the largest net 

 returns. Grass and hay were selected for an illustration because, 

 to my mind, there is no more humiliating fact connected with the 

 agriculture of Maiue than that — in the crop for which this State is 

 popularly supposed to be especially adapted, and on which Maine 

 farmers mo3t pride themselves, we are beaten by most other States 

 in acreage amount. Truly there is great need of improvement in 

 the amount grown per acre, and no less need of having it con- 

 sumed in a way which shall yield much larger net returns than 

 have been obtained ; and it caji be done! 



In going about the past season I learned of an instance where 

 the hay consumed by a herd of cows paid their owner thirty-five 

 dollars per ton, in cash, besides the manure yielded. This was 

 no guess work. The hay was carefully weighed and accurate 

 accounts kept. How many can show as good a record ? 



There is one other matter upon which a word should be added. 

 There are customs and practices among us which, however well 

 they were suited to the conditions of life one, or two, or three 

 generations ago, are unsuited to the changed conditions which 

 surround us at this day. It is well for the pioneer to be a jack at 

 all trades ; to build his own shelter, to pound his own corn, to tan 

 skins and make his shoes. It is well for the distant country set- 

 tlement to have a single trader who deals out all the store goods 

 which find a sale there, one man who sells dry goods and wet 

 goods, hard wares and soft wares, blankets and plows, saltfish 

 and rrbbons, calicoes and molasses, pills and tapes, nails, bullets, 

 castor oil and crackers ; but, as civilization progresses division of 

 labor keeps even step. The carpenter, the shoemaker, the black- 

 smith, the mason, can be more useful to the community in which 

 they live, and employ their labor with more profit to themselves 



