276 AGEICULTURAL REPORT. 



more, while iu 1G30 about a hundred were imported lor the " governor 

 and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." In the mean 

 time a hundred and three cattle and horses were imported into New 

 York from the island of Texel, Holland, by the Dutch West India Com- 

 pany ; and in 1627, the settlements along the Delaware were supplied by 

 the Swedish West India Company, so that by the year 1630 the number of 

 horned cattle in all the colonies must have risen, by importations and b3^ 

 natural increase, to several thousands, to which were added in 1631, 

 1632, and 1633 many large yellow cattle from Denmark, brought over 

 by Captain John Mason, who was engaged in extensive lumbering op- 

 erations along the Piscataqua Eiver, in New Hampshire. 



These were the sources from which the common or '• native " cattle 

 of this country sprang. The earlier importations were undoubtedly 

 more extensive than any subsequent ones, the colonists relying upon the 

 natural increase to supply their wants, but there is historical evidence 

 to show that there was more or less interchange of stock between the 

 various colonies at an early date, and that this resulted in a mixture of 

 blood, such as we find it now in our common stock. 



We are to bear iu mind, also, that the stock of the mother-country 

 and of the various other countries from which the supplies of the colo- 

 nists were drawn was not at that time improved as we find it in the 

 present day. It was long before the interest in the improvement of 

 stock had been awakened, and it is a historical fact that the ox of that 

 day was small and ill-shaped, quite inferior to the ox of our own time ; 

 that the sheep has undergone avast improvement, both in the fineness 

 and value of its wool and the size and quality of the carcass, within the 

 last century ; that throughout the earlier part of the last century the 

 average gross weight of the neat cattle sent for sale to the Smithfield 

 market did not exceed three hundred and seventy pounds, and that of 

 sheep twenty-eight pounds, while the average weight of the former is 

 now over eight hundred pounds, and of the latter over eighty pounds. 

 Nor is it probable on account of the high price of cattle at that period, 

 and the risks to which they were to be exposed, that the colonists ob- 

 tained the best specimens then known. In fact the difference in ani- 

 mals, and what are now considered the best points and the highest in- 

 dications of improvement, were nowhere understood or appreciated 

 two centuries ago. That the cattle of the early settlers were poor of 

 their kind, as compared with our ideas of the quality of similar animals, 

 is, therefore, plain enough to be understood. 



In addition to this, the means of keeping stock of any kind, in such 

 a manner as to secure any improvement in it, were not at hand. The 

 early colonists had no notion of raising grass and hay for their animals 

 by artificial means. They relied chiefly, and almost from necessity, 

 upon the production of natural meadows and the grasses upon the salt- 

 marshes along the sea-shore. The cattle, like their owners, had to browse 

 for their lives, and through the long northern winters to live on poor 

 and miserable swale-hay. Death from starvation and exposure was not 

 uncommon, and sometimes an entire herd fell victims to the severity of 

 the season. The most terrible droughts were of frequent occurrence, and 

 caused great distress. The Indian corn and the grasses perished to such 

 an extent that both grain and forage for stock, at times, had to be im- 

 ported from England, to keep the peojile from starving, and to keep the 

 cattle alive, even so late as 1750. 



Of the mode of keeping cattle in the Virginia colony, Criover, a con- 

 temporary, as appears by the Historical Kegister, says : "All the in- 

 habitants give their cattle in winter is only the husks of their Indian 



