Rural Economy in New England 337 



and horses during the summer months;^ the hay, supplemented to 

 some extent with corn stalks, rye and wheat straw, and potatoes, 

 supplied their winter fodder. Grain was rarely fed, except to hard- 

 worked horses, or to beef cattle which were being fattened for slaugh- 

 tering. A typical inland farm of 100 acres was able to support in 

 this manner 10 or 15 cows, including young stock, one or two yoke 

 of oxen, one or two horses, a flock of from 10 to 20 sheep and about as 

 many swine as cows.^ 



The Native Cattle. 



The beef cattle were the descendants of the Devonshire breed 

 originally imported by the earliest settlers, but had received consider- 

 able intermixture from the Danish breed imported into New Hamp- 

 shire and probably also from the Holstein breed brought by the Dutch 

 colonists to New York. These influences, as well as lack of suf- 

 ficient winter fodder and inattention to selection in breeding, had 

 developed in New England a breed known as "the native cattle," 

 more remarkable for their hardiness than for the production of beef 

 or dairy products. In a few sections, however, such as in the towns 

 of the Connecticut Valley and along the shores of Narragansett 

 Bay,' where the pasturage was especially rich and a market for 

 salted beef could be reached, some improvement in the breed was 

 remarked.* The dairy products from the farmer's cows were an 



' The most reliable writers tell us that cattle were "housed" from the beginning 

 or the middle of November until the middle or latter part of May. The neglect 

 of live stock in this regard, about which travelers had complained at an earlier 

 period (see La Rochefoucauld, I. 495-496; 513), seems to have been caused not 

 by pure inhumanity but by reluctance, perhaps inability, to invest capital in 

 barns and sheds. 



^ These figures are taken from the answers received by the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Society in reply to their questions of 1806. Papers, II. 1807, 35. 

 They agree in general with those given by Livingston, American Agriculture, 

 p. 335. Occasionally advertisements of farms for sale in the columns of the coun- 

 try weekly newspapers yield information on this point. In Mansfield, Con- 

 necticut, the live stock on a farm offered for sale consisted of 10 cows, one yoke of 

 oxen, six three-year-old steers, four two-year-old steers, two horses, 20 sheep 

 and four hogs. Windham Herald, April 10, 1806. A Windham farm had two 

 oxen, two two-year-old steers, five cows, five yearlings, five calves, 16 sheep and 

 two horses. Ibid. November 3, 1808. 



' Morse considered the cattle in the latter region the finest in New England. 

 They would weigh, he thought, from 1,600 to 1,800 lbs. Gazetteer, 1810, art. 

 Rhode Island. 



* An improvement in the breeding of cattle was one of the primary objects 

 of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, established by Elkanah Watson in Pitts- 

 field in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, in 1810. 



