33^ AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



product. Likewise the people must have shoes and clothes. 

 Cattle, sheep and swine are essential and will continue as an 

 essential source of supplies. 



Then, too, the United States has enjoyed in 191 5 the greatest 

 export horse trade in her history. The world needs horses ; New 

 England needs horses and yet in all these oldest states of the 

 Union scarcely enough horses to deserve enumeration are being 

 raised. Horse breeding in the United States for the next twenty 

 years shall enjoy a healthy prosperity, but it must be built with 

 an eye to the needs of the country's markets and not shaped to 

 meet the local whims. 



Furthermore, no system of farming has been devised whereby 

 the farm lands of this or any other country may continue to be 

 croipped to give larger yields, and to improve in physical condi- 

 tion and in fertility that does not incorporate some phase oi 

 live-stock production. And our farming plans are not and must 

 not be short-term plans. Farming affords a life's occupation 

 and that man who bears this distinctly in mind and who gives 

 due consideration to the land to cover his lifetime and that of 

 his sons and his sons' sons after him, is beginning tO' lay the 

 foundations of a successful agriculture. For such a man live 

 stock becomes very essential. 



One of the greatest needs for our immediate and future suc- 

 cess with all phases of stock, is a definite knowledge of the 

 desired market type and an intimate study of our stock in rela- 

 tion to that type. 



With dairy cows, today's type demands, within the resipective 

 breeds, size, capacity, production ami beauty of contour. Few 

 things have been more noticeable during the past six years than 

 the value -which breeders of all kinds have placed on size. In the 

 show and at the sale sizable cows are wanted and paid for. 

 Large cows with a large capacity for food and a marked ability 

 to convert that food into milk mean large and profitable pro- 

 duction. And we keep cows for the profits they bring us. 



Profitable production is the first greatest essential of dairy 

 cows. Are our cows producing much milk and profitably? Too 

 few of them are. And too few of our dairymen know how few 

 of their cows are profitable. With so low an average produc- 

 tion, there must be and are a great many cows that are kept at 

 a loss. This must be admitted and steps taken at once to get 



