240 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



hundred dollars a pair, instead of raising such calves as you 

 chance to have, and, at the age of two years; sell them at forty 

 or fifty dollars, and cheat your neighbor at that. 



Believing, as we do, that in the steers of one and two years 

 old we have the bone, sinew and muscle of the oxen which, 

 with a little more growth and training are to turn over the 

 tough sod and make smooth and fertile the rough and barren 

 places on our farms, allow us again to urge the importance of 

 raising and early training of good steers for that purpose. 



Geo. H. Raymond, Chairman. 



WORCESTER WEST. 



From the Report on Steers. 



It gives your committee pleasure to say that the performances 

 were all in a high degree satisfactory to them and creditable to 

 the exhibitors. Although there were but few of this class on 

 exhibition, in their training they exceeded the expectation of 

 •the committee. The exercises of the steers were marked illus- 

 trations of the culture and discipline of which the ox is suscep- 

 tible. Their evolutions out of the yoke, as well as in it, were 

 performed with almost military precision and regularity. So 

 gratifying were they all that the committee were not without 

 doubts in forming their judgment as to their relative merits. 

 The scarcity of entries is undoubtedly owing to the fact that at 

 no previous fair has this society had a committee for this class of 

 animals. If it is the office of agricultural science to bring to 

 the aid of the husbandman all the helps within its reach to 

 enable him more effectually to develop the latent wealth of 

 the soil, it is obviously important that our domestic animals 

 should be so trained that the application of their physical powers 

 may be subjected as far as is possible to the superior intelligence 

 of man. The habits of beasts as well as those of man are not 

 only more easily formed, but more permanently rooted in the 

 character in early life than in more mature age ; and the ox is 

 not an exception to this law. From their own experience and 

 the information they have derived from those more practiced 

 than themselves, the committee have no doubt but the useful- 

 ness of this valuable, and in this region indispensable animal, 

 might in a great measure be enhanced by earlier and more 



