ON CATTLE-HUSBANDRY. 113 



so that the lazy Durham would fail while the industrious 

 Ayrshire or nimble native might succeed, to such it would 

 seem desirable that encouragement should be given. How- 

 ever this may be, the society, if wrong, will set itself right in 

 the future as in the past. 



It is not our purpose to discuss the advisability of the use 

 of thorough-bred neat-stock: the day when there was neces- 

 sity for such discussion with the farmers of Franklin County 

 has passed. It is not within our purpose to present the mer- 

 its or demerits of any of the favorite breeds. They all have 

 both, which have often been discussed by better qualified and 

 abler champions than ourselves. We will occupy the little 

 space alloted to us in considering the retrogression in neat- 

 stock farming in Franklin County. 



In all ages and in all countries the prosperity of the people 

 has been measured largely by the number of their flocks and 

 herds. Job was the most patient and happy man only when 

 he had fourteen thousand eight hundred sheep, a thousand 

 3'oke of oxen, six thousand camels, &c. Such is the consti- 

 tution of our mother-earth, that no system of agriculture 

 can, in any locality, be for a long time successful without 

 the compensations of domestic animals. 



It has been very thoroughly demonstrated by repeated 

 censuses of the United States, that every hundred inhabit- 

 ants require eighty neat-cattle. From 1830 to 1860 the 

 increase of neat-stock kept exact pace with the population, 

 being in the same ratio of eighty per cent. It was further 

 demonstrated, that, of these eighty cattle, eight should be 

 working-oxen, and this number, for the period named, did 

 not vary a single per cent ; and that, of the eighty cattle, 

 twenty-eight should be milch cows, and the same relative 

 proportion was maintained for the thirty years, also without 

 the variation of a single per cent. From 1860 to ISTO' there 

 were disturbing causes which affected the maintenance of the 

 quota of neat-cattle heretofore determined to be normal and 

 necessary ; viz., the war, the introduction of farm-machinery, 

 and, very generally, a better grade of cattle. By the census 

 of 1870 we find only seventy-four neat-cattle to the hun- 

 dred inhabitants, and of these only three and a half were 

 working-oxen, while twenty -four were cows, and forty-six and 

 a half other cattle. It will be noticed that the working-oxen 



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