154 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE, 



60 pounds per quarter. There has also been a corresponding 

 increase in the quantity and fineness of the wool. For this 

 valuable improvement we are mainly indebted to the profound 

 physiolog-ical knowledge and patient exertions of Robert Bakcwell 

 of England. Spanish and French Merinos are now acclimated and 

 prolific here, and a single animal often produces as much wool as 

 three of the sheep common with us fifty years ago, and of a much 

 better quality. In oxen the same knowledge has taught us where 

 to place the sinews of strength and lines of beauty, or to lay on 

 the best steaks or stores of tallow ; in swine, how to reduce the 

 long snout, the flapping ears and coarse limbs, and carry the 

 amount to jucy tender-loins and snowy lard 1 And what is almost 

 paradoxical, these advantages are realized at a less cost than that 

 at which we used to obtain an inferior product under the old 

 system. 



Careful and long-tried experiments have shown, that almost any 

 desirable points and qualities, may be gained in the size, shape, 

 and productive powers of our animals, by patient and systematic 

 attention. 



For instance — to an hundred cows whose average product of 

 milk is three quarts a day, you may apply the aids which science 

 presents, and increase that average one quart, without any increase 

 in the cost of keeping ; then if we have 150,000 cows in the State, 

 it will give at four cents per quart, $6,000 per day, or $2,190,000 

 a year in one common agricultural item, in a single State — a sum 

 sufficient in a few years, added to the other industry of the people, 

 to reclaim all the waste places of your farms, to erect new and 

 substantial dwellings, with all the modern improvements, to those 

 who need them, to supply churches, school houses, and halls for 

 the transaction of public business, and the convenience of your 

 lyceums and agricultural gatherings, and give to your hills and 

 valleys the aspect of teeming fertility. 



A similar result may also be obtained in horses ; their value for 

 the market, for docility, for speed and draft, ma}"^ be materially 

 enhanced by a judicious course of breeding and training ; and 

 while their productive value would be essentially greater, the cost 

 of keeping them, it is believed, would not be so much as that of 

 inferior animals. 



These principles which I have briefly illustrated, apply with 

 peculiar force to every branch of farming. Low lands, producing 

 natural grasses and -coarse herbage to the amount of a ton to the 



