PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. £51 



tion ; the harder we work with our brains, the more animal food 

 we seem to require. Improved animals, like the Shorthorns for 

 instance, require richer food than Texan cattle, and bright, active, 

 energetic men, as a rule, require, and perhaps will have, more 

 nutritious and more easily digestible food than the slow, plodding 

 farm laborer of the past. In all civilized countries the demand 

 for animal food is increasing much more rapidly tlian the supply. 

 England is searching the world over for meat. And, what is still 

 more strange, with all our immense area of cultivated land, New 

 England, New York and Pennsylvania sends thousands of miles 

 for beef cattle. This is very well, but we shall soon learn that we 

 must look to improved agriculture, rather than to cheap land and 

 semi-wild animals, for a steady supply of good meat. The farmers 

 of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Wisconsin and Minnesota need have no fears that Texan cattle 

 will crowd out Shorthorns and their grades from our markets. 

 We shall produce better meat and we shall get better prices for 

 it. Poor meat is the dearest of all food. Many of our farmers 

 think they cannot afibrd to produce beef and mutton. And this is 

 probably true, unless they produce beef and mutton of better than 

 average quality. There is an astonishing amount of poor meat 

 raised and sold in the better farmed portions of the country. We 

 must raise good beef and good mutton. To do this with profit 

 we must" furnish richer food and this will afford richer manure. 

 And taking meat and manure into account we can make a profit. 



A few years ago the wool from Leicester, Cotswold and other 

 long-wooled English sheep sold for from 20 to 30 per cent, less 

 than Merino wool. Now all this is changed. Desirable combing 

 wool brings from 20 to 30 per cent more than Merino, This is a 

 great change. Congress was at one time urged to take off the 

 duty on combing wool because it was said the farmers of the 

 United States could not produce this kind of wool. It could be 

 grown in Canada but not here. On the west side of the suspen- 

 sion Bridge, over Niagara River, combing wool could be produced 

 of excellent quality, but not on the east side. And while the 

 Canadian farmers on the east side of the Detroit river could pro- 

 duce the best of combing wool, the farmers of Michigan on the 

 west side of the river could not do so. And a member of Con- 

 gress, a lawyer from the State of New York, and in many respects 

 a very intelligent and able man, actually asked me in all sincerity 



