170 STATES OF THE EIYER PLATE. 



invaluable as potreros or meadows on the tillage-farms, 

 for fine stock. 



In the suggestions I have made will probably be found 

 all the requisites to meet the necessities for the highest de- 

 velopment in sheep-rearing attainable for many years to 

 come. The more laborious tillage operations, and culti- 

 vation of forage crops, such as turnips and the like for 

 sheep, is a stage perhaps yet far removed, even on the 

 most advanced establishments, and need not therefore 

 be treated of here. 



XL 



It may, on first thoughts, be considered premature to 

 treat of agriculture in connexion with cattle-feeding ; but, 

 as I have already remarked, it is becoming a pressing 

 necessity to produce good beef for the town consumption, 

 and for salting for foreign markets. The benefits accruing 

 from the higher-bred animals shorthorns and Here- 

 fords that exist and are augmenting in a few hands, 

 cannot be realized without a system of at least partial 

 fatting ; and we can never have wholesome beef in the 

 city, nor a trade in salt beef, until farms in the vicinity of 

 the cities, convenient to ports or along lines of railway, 

 are in part devoted to this very important branch of 

 industry. ' Cattle-feeding ' is a term which conveys the 

 idea of an European system, with all its appliances ; but, 

 we have, by no means, reached that stage, and there 

 would be no likelihood of such a system paying in the pre- 

 sent generation. Cattle -feeding, however, can be adapted 

 to circumstances, and determined in its details, by the 

 circumstances of climate, products, and possible appli- 

 ances, and the cost of the same ; a fair return on the 



