388 STATE BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



this the question of cheap tninsportatiou of farm products to market in the 

 ;shape of meat instead of the raw material. 



I do not think that we as farmers need to fear a ghitting of markets in our 

 day if we breed and rear imj)roved breeds of stock. 



Of course we would not pretend to answer the question as to whether the 

 breeding of horses, cattle, sheej^, or swine would pay any particular farmer best, 

 nor would we presume to tell in what proportion his stock should be mixed of 

 the various kinds. 



Tiie question has been very ably worked up recently in Great Britain by W. 

 Macdonald, editor of the North British Agriculturist, and a long essay with 

 statistics appeared in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society for 1876, 

 on the relative profits to the farmer from horse, cattle, and sheep breeding, 

 rearing, and feeding in the United Kingdom. The question is not answered, 

 but after comparing the statistics for twenty years and receiving letters from 

 prominent farmers in seventy different localities in regard to it, he makes the 

 following deduction and summary: ''Mixed stocks, combining horse breeding, 

 cattle breeding and feeding, and sheep breeding and feeding, unquestionably 

 pay best. Numerous farms are not suited for such a combination ; but it is 

 generally admitted that the mixed system referred to is not practiced on nearly 

 so many farms as it could advantageously be. As to sources of profit to the 

 farmer over the country generally, we have, 1st, sheep ; 2d, cattle ; 3d, horses." 

 But some farmers may be ready to ask if it would not be as well to sell the pro- 

 ducts of the farm and depend on guano and manufactured superphosj)hates and 

 other manures. They might do as well for perhaps a very few crops, but would 

 soon find that the manures they have applied, although furnishing the requisite 

 material for enriching the land sufficiently, lacks in supplying the necessary 

 organic substance. We have the conditions of plant growth about as near per- 

 fect as possible when we break up our soil at first. The leaf mold gives requisite 

 organic matter, and we find consequently that the largest crops are raised with 

 the least labor (barring the clearing) when we break our virgin soil. So we 

 Avill always find that the nearer we approach to these primal conditions in 

 enriching the soil, the better will be our success ; and large quantities of well- 

 rotted barnyard manure well mingled with straw or litter of any kind will come 

 nearer this than any chemical combination. You will not, I hope, understand 

 me as saying that manufactured manures should not be used ; on the contrary, 

 i could wish that every farmer were able to jrarchase them to some extent as 

 auxiliary to his farm yard products, and thus help to increase the fertility and 

 the production of his farm. 



Let us then briefly review the relation we have attempted to portray in this 

 hasty sketch : 



1. That early or pioneer farming is a system of prodigality and waste of 

 manurial products, and little live stock is kept, thus giving a gradual depletion 

 of products ; 



2. That a system of better farming in old countries has followed where the 

 constant effort has been to remedy the first system and gradually bring back 

 the fertility of their lands by saving every kind of manurial substance, as sewage, 

 night soil, and street sweepings, as well as the refuse of many kinds of manu- 

 facture, all these being turned to the best account as fertilizers. In a recent 

 paper the fact is stated that a company pays the city of Paris a royalty of $20,- 

 OOU per annum for the privilege of sweeping their streets, and that the stock 

 thus taken paid two hundred per cent not by the manufactured manure from 

 the sweepings. 



