SECRETARY'S REPORT. 41 



cattle. Cows should go dry about two mouths before par- 

 turition. Maturity of breeding animals I think essential. 

 Poor keeping will reduce cattle to a worthless condition. 



Three other circulars were returned, the answers in which 

 were similar to those already given. For want of date, the 

 committee could not identify the towns from whence they 

 came. They therefore make no further mention of them. 



The subject of cattle husbandry cannot be too closely studied 

 by the farmers of Massachusetts. As an agricultural com- 

 munity, our improvement cannot be great, until the breeding 

 and keeping of cattle is better understood and more universally 

 practiced. We all know the exhausted condition of our lands, 

 and the necessity of some practicable means of restoring them 

 to their primitive fruitfulness. This can only be done by a 

 plentiful supply of manure. We believe manure can be 

 cheaply obtained by rearing a larger number of cattle and 

 sheep. Spread them over our hills in summer, and furnish 

 them with food from our valleys in winter, and they will pro- 

 duce fertilizing matter sufficient to renovate and keep the land 

 in good condition. There is nothing lost. Changes take 

 place ; grass is changed into flesh, flesh again into grass. 

 No animal can annihilate a particle of matter, but must return 

 to the earth whatever it has received from it. This will be 

 enough, and more than enough, to produce food for the support 

 of another animal of the same size and kind. 



Every bushel of Indian corn grown and consumed upon the 

 soil will make more manure than enough to produce another 

 bushel. We say more than enough, because during the growth 

 of vegetation it is aided by gases from the atmosphere, and in 

 the consumption of vegetables by animals something is added 

 to the fertilizing power of the manure by the mysterious pro- 

 cess of digestion in the animal organism. Thus we see that 

 the products of the earth revolve in a circle, and like rural 

 pleasures have no end. 



Farmers need not want manure, if they will only apply their 

 resources in the right direction. Winter and summer do not 

 return with more certainty than the products of agricultural 

 labor, if well and properly directed, and the improvement and 

 renovation of our farms will certainly take place if we manage 

 well the means within our reach. 



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