330 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



adapted to the rich and deep pastures of the Middle and Western 

 States ; the Ayrshire, and the North Devon, seem to me es 

 pecially suited to New England ; while the West Highland cattle 

 would evidently be fitted to the northern, cold, and least pro 

 ductive parts of the country. Great advantages would, in many 

 cases, accrue from a first cross between some breeds. As I have 

 already said, extraordinarily fine milking animals have been pro 

 duced, in this way, by the crossing of the Durham and the North 

 Devon, and by a cross of a short horn, even, with an Alderney. 

 An eminent farmer in Ayrshire is accustomed to cross his Ayr 

 shire with the improved Durham breed, and steers of this stock, 

 and heifers, after their first calf, have, as I have seen, proved a 

 most excellent and valuable stock. To proceed further than this 

 has not been attended with favorable results, and is never sure 

 of manifesting the best qualities of their progenitors. 



Many persons here have accumulated large profits by breeding 

 very superior animals for sale, and the prices have been often ex 

 orbitant. The same results can scarcely be expected in the 

 United States, where the means of farmers are very limited, and 

 few can enter into spirited pecuniary competitions for the mere 

 gratification of taste. But a fair and reasonable profit may be 

 expected, under skilful and careful management. 



With us, as well as here, the success of farming must mainly 

 depend upon such a conduct of the farm as shall not exhaust its 

 productive powers ; or rather, that it shall, from its own resources, 

 furnish the means, not only of recruiting its strength, but of 

 actually increasing its capabilities of production. There is no 

 more obvious way of doing this, than by consuming the produce 

 of the farm, mainly, in feeding animals, through whom the 

 riches of its vegetation may be returned in a form to furnish 

 other and better crops. The stall-feeding of beef-animals, if the 

 current prices of agricultural produce are brought into the reck 

 oning, appears, almost always, a losing operation. It will often 

 be a serious one, where the animals so fed are of a poor and un 

 thrifty character, or where, as dairy animals, the product is small 

 in quantity, and inferior in quality. It is plain how much the 

 favorable chances of success are improved, when the stock to 

 be fatted are of a kind to fatten rapidly, and to return large 

 weights, and where the yield of the dairy stock is of the finest 

 quality, and given in abundance. The difference between one 



