158 My Little Farm 



or other of them picking up the trifles otherwise 

 lost in the feeding of the rest. Cattle, sheep and 

 horses, on the other hand, may damage each other 

 badly and bring down the total result. I know 

 many farms of rough and smooth, such as mine 

 was before reclaiming, where the sheep and the 

 horses are enough to prevent the cows getting a 

 fair mouthful of anything but the inferior pasture 

 from one end of the year to the other. The sheep, 

 though a weed killer, will touch none of your 

 " rough bottoms " while a pick remains on the 

 uplands, and she can make out a fair living on grass 

 so short that the cow cannot catch it at all. Yet 

 we have too many farmers who keep this state of 

 things going year after year, and wonder why their 

 cows cannot do so well as other people's, where 

 sheep, if kept at all, are limited to numbers that 

 will permit the cow standard of pasturing. 



The same, or worse, holds good of young horses 

 kept as store animals and not for work. I question 

 whether the great bulk of these in Connaught can 

 pay even for their food after they reach the age of 

 two, but they can keep the best of the pasture 

 without a bite for animals much more profitable. 

 The really sound horses in my part of the country 

 are estimated at not more than 10 per cent, of 

 the whole, and only that small fraction of them, at 

 most, can have it in them to pay for prolonged 

 maintenance without work, as store animals. I 

 avoid the horse, unless for work. Like the pig, 

 he is too speculative for me, though for that very 

 reason, the more attractive to many farmer*. 



