LIVE STOCK. 407 



connected with it ; and it is only with the aid of two horses, kept 

 in the best condition, performing their work with alacrity, and 

 stimulating their attendants to activity, that we may hope to 

 accomplish the best results. But all this involves much more 

 care in feeding and grooming than farmers are disposed to give to 

 their teams. If I were writing a book of directions for hand-to- 

 mouth farmers, I should advise them to have no horses upon their 

 farms, but to poke along through life in a slow and slipshod way, 

 with comfortable and lazy cattle and comfortable and lazy farm 

 hands. As, however, my object is to introduce an improvement 

 in every branch of agriculture, and to increase the activity and 

 economy with which every operation is performed, I do not hesi- 

 tate to recommend, that, for all regular farm-work, horses, or, still 

 better, large mules, be employed. For the extra work of a large 

 farm, especially where the fattening of beef cattle is one of the 

 objects, a few pairs of oxen, to be worked moderately from time 

 to time will be found economical. Under all other circumstances 

 I should be disposed to discard them. 



NEAT CATTLE. 



In i860 there were in the United States 23,419,378 neat cat- 

 tle, — old and young, working oxen, and milch cows, — and these 

 were all, or almost all, owned by farmers and graziers. Their 

 immense number indicates the magnitude of their importance to 

 the farmer ; and, indeed, it is rare to find any farm, large or small, 

 upon which the feeding of the bovine race is not a very large 

 element of the business. So far as their treatment in this book 

 is concerned, however, it has been thought better to devote to 

 its discussion several distinct chapters, namely, " Soiling and Pas- 

 turing," "The Dairy," and "Winter Management and Feed- 

 ing." We will pass, therefore, to the consideration of 



SHEEP AND WOOL GROWING. 



Sheep husbandry seems to be, just now, under a cloud. Prob- 

 ably there are not nearly so many sheep now in the country as 

 there were ten years ago. 



