SHEEP HUSBANDRY. X89 



build a mill. The machinery must be proportioned to the power. 

 Water cannot be freighted from a distance with which to run a 

 cotton factory or a grist mill. If it is desirable to use steam 

 instead of water — the same primary considerations must be had in 

 reg-ard to the expense of fuel. 



These points being settled, the kind of machinery to be employed 

 will next demand attention, and the skilful operator will always 

 select that which will produce the best results, with the least expense 

 Failing to recognize this fundamental principle, he will soon find 

 that his competitors are putting a better and cheaper style of 

 goods into the market than he can produce, and his enterprise will 

 result in hopeless failure. 



Now the same force in nature which gives the manufacturer the 

 water to turn his wheels, and wood and coal wherewith to run his 

 engines, comes to the door of the farmer in the form of grass, hay 

 and grain — and the machines by which these sources of power 

 may be converted into bread upon our tables, or money in our 

 pockets, are our domestic animals. 



In the light of this truth, it becomes a matter of the highest 

 importance for us to ascertain which class of our domestic animals 

 will give us the largest returns in proportion to cost of keeping. 



I do not here propose to go over the whole question of the 

 comparative profitableness of different kinds of farm stock — the 

 subject of the hour does not demand it, even were it desirable. 

 There are causes in operation, which year by year are diminishing 

 the number of cattle in New England ; for it is useless for a man, 

 where hay is worth fifteen dollars a ton, and corn one dollar and 

 fifty cents a bushel, to compete with an Illinois farmer in the pro- 

 duction of beef. It is as contrary to sound business principles to 

 undertake to make beef from grain transported a thousand miles, 

 as it would be to think of running a cotton factory with water 

 brought from lake Erie. There will always be a definite demand 

 in New England for the ox for the plow, and for the cow for dairy 

 purposes, and that demand will always regulate itself. The dairy 

 is paying large profits just now, but what will the dairyman do 

 with his cows when they have exhausted his land till the business 

 oan be no longer made remunerative ? — for of all our domestic 

 animals none makes so small and so poor a return to the soil in 

 manurial agents, as the milk-giving cow. Who of us has not seen 

 whole townships in New England impoverished by this system of 



