358 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



prosperity. While chemistry -will do much in furnishing artificial fertilizers, 

 yet Ave must rely in the main upon animal manure to keep up the fertility of 

 the soil. Farmers, no matter wiiat the necessity, \vill not keep animals beyond 

 those required to cultivate the soil and furnish milk and butter for home use, 

 for their manure alone. It is not indirect but direct profits that influence the 

 farmer. If it is profitable to raise colts for the market, he will raise them. 

 If it is profitable to make butter he will keep cows for that purpose. If in 

 doing this his barn yard becomes filled with manure, he will use it. If it is at 

 present unprofitable to raise colts, on account of the low price they bring, or 

 to keep cows because butter is low, or sheep because wool does not: bring war 

 prices, or hogs because the corn they eat would bring more in market than the 

 pork when butchered, then I submit it is high time for a new departure. 



If the use of a thoroughbred Norman Percheron horse will give us a class 

 suitable for the lumber Avoods, the farm or the road, horses that will command 

 ready sale at remunerative prices, then why not use him? If the use of a thor- 

 oughbred bull with our best native cows will give us superior grades, yielding 

 more milk and butter? If we can raise sheep valuable for mutton, no matter 

 what the price of wool? If instead of the hoop-backed, long-snouted, slab- 

 sided racer, good only to empty the corn crib and squeal for more, we try the 

 improved Essex, the Berkshire, or some of the other excellent and easily fat- 

 tened pigs, are we not likely to profit thereby? 



Let me present a few figures. We have in this county say two thousand horses, 

 valued at 1100 each. This would amount to $200,000 ; at 8125 each $250,000 ; 

 at $150 each $300,000. Here you see $50 added to the value of each horse 

 adds $100,000 to the wealth of the county. If then it will pay a farmer to 

 raise a colt and sell it for $100, will it not pay him much better to raise one 

 that at the same age would find a ready sale at $150? 



We have in this county some 3,000 cows. Their average value does not 

 exceed $35, or $70,000 for the lot. Improve this stock, add $10 thereby to 

 the value of each, and you add $20,000 to the wealth of the county. It costs 

 no more to raise a grade calf than a native, yet it is certainly when two years 

 old at least worth $10 more. This is all profit. 



I venture the assertion that the 2,000 cows in this county do not average 200 

 pounds of butter each per year. Yet we have well authenticated instances of 

 cows far exceeding this. In a popular agricultural paper, during the past 

 year, I noticed the record of a Jersey cow which gave 486 ])ounds in one year, 

 and another Avhich gave 511 pounds, and a young grade Jersey that yielded 

 300 pounds. 



In the Post and Tribune of last week appeared an article taken from the 

 Country (Gentleman, giving an account of a visit to a farm in Virginia, and of 

 the Holstein cattle thereon, the property of Judge FuUerton, of New York. 



The cow Eva, for three consecutive months, September, October, and No- 

 vember, averaged forty-two (juarts of milk per day, and the following five 

 months her average was thirty quarts per day. llcr milk was tested and 

 yielded three pounds of butter per day for long periods. I received a catalogue 

 pertaining to the same breed a few days since. I find therein the record of a 

 cow that gave 14,312 pounds of milk a year; this would give an average of 

 nearly twenty quarts per day for each day in the year, and an actual experi- 

 ment showed 20| pounds of milk made one pound of butter, or 70GJ pounds of 

 butter year. Her milk for one year, at five cents per quart, would bring 

 $357.80. A record kept of twelve Holstein cows showed this average yield of 

 butter per year to be 350 pounds. One fact further in their connection. A 



