LIVE STOCK. 363 



GRASS CULTURE — STARVING CATTLE. 



But now let us find if we can how this transformatioa has been brought 

 about. From the time of the first settlement of the colonies up to the mid- 

 dle of the last centurj'', the practice of sowing grass seed, cultivation of the 

 grasses, making and saving hay was wholly unknown. The cattle of those 

 ^ays were allowed, or obliged, to shift for themselves, summer and winter, 

 except in some cases where they had a little straw, with rough fodder, and 

 what swale or marsh hay could be found. 



One colonial historian says the ''cattle were so utterly neglected that it 

 -was quite common for the multitudes that starved to death every winter to 

 supply hides enough for shoeing the negroes on every farm." This was a 

 matter so generally and constantly anticipated that my own grandfather, I 

 have heard, was once very near turning off a good overseer because cattle 

 enough had not died on the farm of which he had the supervision to furnish 

 leather for the negroes' shoes. Another writer says, " They neither housed 

 nor milked their cows in winter, having a notion that it would kill them." 



OLD rOGYISM. 



Similar conditions, it seems, prevailed in Europe as well as in this country. 

 Agriculture as a science was beyond the comprehension of the age. Crude 

 Ideas, prejudices, and superstitions — that it seems difficult for the people of 

 the present age to comprehend — prevailed everywhere. And everywhere 

 almost impregnable barriers to progress seem to have been built up by the 

 farmers themselves. Everything that breathed of books, learning, or 

 improvement was an innovation that their ideas of propriety could never 

 sanction. One historian says: "The farmer who ventured to make experi- 

 ments, to strike out new paths of practice, or to adopt new modes of culture 

 subjected himself to the ridicule of a whole neighborhood," and that "we, 

 at this distance of time, can with difficulty realize the extent of the preju- 

 dices which blinded the eyes of the people of those days." 



A later writer says: " Custom had marked out a road for them, and it was 

 smooth and easy to travel, and, though it might be a circle that brought up just 

 where it started, it had the ad vantage in the old farmer's mind that in it he never 

 lost his way. It didn't require any exertion of mind. His comfort as well as 

 his happiness was based on a feeling of filial obedience to old usage that was 

 hereditary in his being. It was born in the blood and ruled him with an 

 irresistible power. The old common law, based on precedeut, custom, prac- 

 tice, was his guide and rule. He would be governed by custom, not by 

 reason. If ancient custom was known, that was good enough for him. It 

 wasn't for him to doubt. To investigate would imply doubt. To investi- 

 gate was to theorize. Theory is at the bottom of all investigation, and theory 

 was a bugbear in his mind. The logical result — that no improvement could 

 be reached without investigation — had no terror for him. He seldom read. 

 The written word he received with distrust. It might contain principle, and 

 it wasn't principles that he cared anything about, but practice. No matter 

 whether founded on wisdom and experience or not, practice was the thing." 



CRANKS. 



But a change has come, superstitions have been uprooted, prejudices have 



