•368 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



SCKUB AND GRADE SHEEP. 



The common sheep of our country will shear four or five pounds per head 

 ■of a poor quality of wool, which at thirty cents per pound gives 11.50 per 

 head. The improved American Merino or their grades shear as high as ten 

 •or twelve pounds of good market wool per head that is of a much better qual- 

 ity than the former; this at the same price per pound gives us double the 

 amount obtained from the common sheep. 



COST. 



But some say, as they said of improved implements, that the implement 

 ■costs too much and that it takes too much labor to take care of good stock. 

 To such I would say that all we get from our farms is the pay for our labor, 

 and for me to labor without pay is poor fun, hence I shall choose to labor 

 with good stock that do pay a profit rather than with scrubs and get nothing 

 but my labor for my pains. 



Mr. E. A. Burnett: We hear even breeders of improved animals say that 

 the feed makes the animal. !Now can you make an improved animal from a 

 scrub by good feed, or can an improved animal be profitably kept by common 

 feeding? 



Mr. Hibbard : Improved stock and improved feed should go together. 



Mr. Burnett: Does it take more feed to produce a pound of meat on com- 

 mon stock than on improved stock? 



Mr. Hibbard: Yes, it costs one or two cents per pound more on common 

 stock. 



Dr. Miles: It is a popular idea that when one gets a pure-bred animal he 

 gets something that will continue constant, and this is a mistake. The ani- 

 mals on your farms are continually changing. One who buys blooded ani- 

 mals, forgetting that they are the product of special influences, and subjects 

 them to the ordinary surrounding influences which have produced the scrub, 

 ■will but meet with disappointment. 



SHORT HORN CATTLE. 



BY J. S. FLINT OF SOMERSET. 



[Read at the Hanover Institute, Feb. 8, 1887.] 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: — It is recorded in history 

 ■that the earliest improvement of the Short Horns began in the counties of 

 York and Durham, England, sometime early in the 17th century; yet it is 

 believed that they were an established breed, and as compared with other breeds 

 of cattle of that day, a decidedly meritorious breed for many years ancerior 

 to that time. All early accounts of the Short Horn seem to concur that 

 they were from the first remarkably well adapted to feeding purposes, possess- 

 ing the ability to lay on their flesh evenly and rapidly, ripening at an early 

 ^ge, and attaining great weights. 



The cows have always been remarkable as dairy animals, yielding large 



