LIVE STOCK. 385 



This is the circle within which the reasoning of the best mod- 

 ern agriculture constantly revolves. We may make our chief 

 business the growth of large crops, yet, unless we are surrounded 

 by some peculiar circumstances, we cannot hope to continue the 

 profitable growth of large crops without the aid of manure result- 

 ing from the feeding of animals. We may make it our chief 

 object to raise fine beef or other animal products for sale, and we 

 may regard every thing else connected with the farm as purely 

 incidental to this ; — yet we shall soon find that the key to our 

 success lies in the fertility of the land, increased by a judicious use 

 of the manure that the animals make. 



It is impossible in any mixed husbandry, or in what may more 

 properly be called general husbandry, to disregard for a moment 

 the relation always existing between the three cardinal points of 

 crops, cattle, and dung. If we do away with the cattle and sell 

 our crops, we fall short of dung, and must buy it or its substitute 

 in the market. If we fall short of food, our cattle and our 

 manure-pits both suffer. If we allow our manure to run to waste, 

 or use it with bad economy, both cattle and crops must suffer 

 in the end. Of course there are circumstances in which spe- 

 cial facilities for purchasing manure, extraordinarily high prices 

 for grain, or the prevalence of diseases which make it unsafe to 

 keep large stocks of cattle, compel a deviation from the foregoing 

 principle. But, as a principle, it is a fixed one, and any change 

 from its requirements should be adopted only with due considera- 

 tion and for good and sufficient reasons, which, being generally 

 of a local character, it is not necessary nor desirable to discuss 

 in this connection. 



To return to the illustration with which this work commenced, 

 — that of a young man about entering upon the improvement of a 

 farm, — we find that one of the questions which it will be most 

 important for him to decide is, that of the extent to which the 

 raising of live stock should form a part of his plan, and having 

 decided this, to fix upon the direction which his live stock efforts 

 shall take. 



The following fields are open to him : the raising of horses. 



