58 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



yield in the shortest time the largest quantity and best quality of 

 beef, mutton or milk, with the largest profit to the producer and at 

 least cost to the consumer." But this is not precisely the problem 

 for Maine farmers to solve, because our circumstances are difierent. 

 Few, if any, here grow oxen for beef alone, but for labor and beef, 

 so that earliest possible maturity maj'' be omitted and a year or 

 more of labor profitably intervene before conversion to beef Many 

 cultivators of sheep, too, are so situated as to prefer fine wocd, 

 which is incompatible with the largest quantity and best quality of 

 meat. Others differently situated in regard to a meat market would 

 do well to follow the English practice and aim at the most profita- 

 ble production of mutton. A great many farmers, not onh'^ of those 

 in the vicinity of large towns, but of those at some distance, might, 

 beyond doubt, cultivate dairy qualities in cows, which as a general 

 thing, have been sadly neglected in years past, and this too, even, 

 if necessary, at the sacrifice, to considerable extent, of beef making 

 qualities. 



Whatever may be the object in view, it should be clearly appre- 

 hended and striven for with persistent and well directed efforts. 

 To buy or breed common animals of mixed qualities and use them 

 for any and for all purposes is too much like a manufacturer of 

 cloth procuring some carding, spinning and weaving machinery, 

 adapted to no particular purpose but can somehow be used for 

 any, and attempting to make fabrics of cotton, of wool, and of 

 linen with it. I do not say that cloth would not be produced, but 

 he would assuredly be slow in getting rich by it. 



The stock grower needs not only to have a clear and definite 

 aim in view, but also to understand the means by which it may 

 best be accomplished. Among these means a knowledge of the 

 principles of breeding holds a prominent place, and this is not of 

 very easy acquisition by the mass of farmers. The experience of 

 any one man would go but a little way towards acquiring it, and 

 there has not been much published on the subject in any form 

 within the reach of most, I have been able to find nothing like 

 an extended systematic treatise on the subject either among our 

 own, or the foreign agricultural literature which has come within 

 my notice. Indeed, from tlie scantiness of what appears to have 

 been written, coupled with the fact that mucli knowledge must 

 exist somewhere, one is tempted to believe that not all which 

 might have done so, has yet found its way to printers' ink. That 

 a great deal has been acquired, we know, as we know a tree — by 



