210 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ried on to a limited extent, as compared with the Middle States 

 and the great AVest, sire from one to two or three, and some as 

 high as four or five hundred, even, during the period in which 

 they are kept for cows. Whereas, cows, on an average, do not 

 drop more than from four to six calves before they are fattened 

 and slaughtered ; so that if a farmer rears a cow and keeps 

 her till she is eight or ten years old, rearing each year her calf, 

 that proves to be very inferior, the community does not suffer a 

 tenth of the injury that is sustained in every case when a worth- 

 less bull is kept for cows, in a stock-raising community, for one 

 single year. Yet many farmers will as soon put a cow to a 

 poor, worthless bull, as to a good-blooded and valuable one, 

 even though they design to raise the calf. Your committee are 

 of the opinion that a loss of hundreds of dollars at least, is 

 sustained every year in most towns in this community where 

 this custom is practised. 



We are aware that many farmers have an inveterate preju- 

 dice against some of the best stock in the country, simply be- 

 cause it is imported or blooded stock, and choose to raise calves 

 sired by bulls that have been raised haphazard, without any 

 reference to size, symmetry of form, blood, or quality of cow 

 from which it came. If the only object is to bring the cow to 

 milk annually and kill the calf for veal at six weeks old, we 

 would rather put a cow to a thorough-bred, short-horned Dur- 

 ham, or Ayrshire bull, and pay a dollar for his use to every 

 cow, than to go for nothing to a thin, lank, coarse animal, 

 that only possesses the power to impress on his get his own 

 ugliness and deformity; for the calf will be worth from one to 

 two dollars more for the shambles when ready to kill. 



Many farmers will ridicule the most valuable information and 

 important statistics, if written in a book, and continue to drive 

 their cows to a twenty-five cent bull, because of their suicidal 

 prejudice against imported stock. Forgetting that nearly all 

 our imported bulls were reared by practical, as well as scientific 

 farmers of England, who possess skill in producing neat stock, 

 as far superior to their own egotistical, uncivilized conception 

 of it, as our best stock of Worcester county excels the wild, 

 uncultivated herds that roam the forests of South America. 



In England's best farming districts the produce of neat 



