33G BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



hay, grain, or potatoes, to impoverish the soil, and in the end the 

 bahance will be against you. 



How is it with horses ? Is it wise to make horses the chief 

 business of your farms ? Some of you have done it heretofore. 

 If you have a specialty here, it is horses. But how does it prove? 

 In a pecuniary point of view possibly a few of you make a good 

 thing of it. But really the majority of farmers are taxed heavily 

 to put money into the hands of a few. You raise colts hoping to 

 make a lucky hit, to get a fast horse that will bring you any where 

 from a thousand to five thousand dollars. One out of one or two 

 hundred horses possibly are fit for the race course ; they are fit for 

 scarcely anything else ; and the hundred or two are not as valu- 

 able as they would have been if they had been bred for legitimate 

 service, for workers or roadsters instead of for racers. As a com- 

 munity you lose money in your horse business. I do not speak 

 here of the demoralizing tendency of the business : of its decidedly 

 bad influence on our boys and young men : of the horse racing and 

 gambling nuisance ; of the idleness, the dissipation, of the loss 

 of time and of money, sure concomitants of the business, of the 

 undue prominence given to this interest at our fairs, taking the 

 greater part of the time, space and money. I was amused last fall 

 at the display at our agricultural fair ; and I think it only illus- 

 trates the tendency everywhere. Ilorse grounds, hoi-se sheds, 

 horse men, horse women, hoi'se boys, horse jockeys and horse talk 

 everywhere and continually. I looked around carefully, search- 

 ingly, everywhere, for your display of cattle. A few stunted speci- 

 mens, tucked away in the most out-of-the-way corner, as if their 

 owners were ashamed of them and brought them there to liicle them, 

 instead of to show them, were all that I could find. We have read 

 and heard tell of Cattle Shows, but where now are they ? Where 

 are the fat bullocks, the magnificent oxen, the beautiful cows ? 

 They ought to be there ; they ought to have the first place, the 

 place of honor in your shows, and the highest premiums. It is 

 these that show prosperity. It is these that give a reliable and 

 constant income if rightly managed. » 



I have been clearing the way thus far in order that I may be 

 prepared to show you, if I can, that cheese should become your 

 specially. I use this word as it is now commonly used, meaning a 

 peculiar and principal business or occupation. You should make 

 your own butter, your own beef; you should produce your own * 

 mutton ; you should raise to some extent your own grain, and cer- 



