NEW ENGLAND FARMING. 37 



likely to raise their calves, many would be inclined to a Short 

 Horn cross on these, provided due advantage is taken in 

 keeping the cows in good enough order to pay for themselves 

 as beef after they have brought in the revenue of the churn 

 and the cheese press. Tlie Alderney affords an excellent strain 

 for small butter dairies where the butter is really first class, 

 and can readily be sold at first hand to those who appreciate its 

 excellence and are willing to pay a larger price accordingly ; 

 but this breed is scarcely to be recommended for general dairy 

 purposes, since it cannot be forgotten that the ultimate destina- 

 tion of all horned cattle is for the table, and the Alderney 

 leaves little more than a skeleton after the milk pail is filled. 



2. As regards Sheep, I cannot omit to urge upon your 

 attention the earnest conviction I feel, that they do not receive 

 among you the attention to which they are entitled. What is 

 the reason of this neglect? It cannot be that there is any thing 

 in your climate which should confine you exclusively to dairy- 

 ing, or any tiling in your grasses which makes better beef than 

 they would mutton ! You know of the county of Ayr, from 

 which the Ayrshire cattle come, mainly I .presume from its 

 fame as a dairy county, but how is it with sheep there ? 



I will not weary you with all the details of the statistical 

 comparison I have drawn up between your own county of 

 Worcester and that of Ayr, but let me state that with an 

 actual area 40,000 acres smaller than that of Worcester, Ayr 

 has a larger surface on which a tillage rotation is carried out, 

 so that she produces about four times as much grain as is 

 grown in Worcester County, mainly oats and wheat. Now the 

 total number of milch cows in Worcester County, in round 

 numbers, is 34,000 against 40,000 in Ayrshire, and of other 

 cattle, old and young, 28,000 here against 45,000 there, which, 

 making a total of 62,000 against 84,000, in view of whatever 

 difference there may be in natural capacity, we may suppose to 

 compare perhaps as favorably as we could expect. But now 

 take the sheep, — and Worcester County, with all its admirable 

 grazing lands, with all its productive power for hay and Indian 

 corn and roots, with all its facilities for the purchase for feed- 

 ing of the sheep brought down from the North and West by 

 railroad to your very doors — with its 700,000 acres of land 

 almost immediately adjacent to one of the largest cities in 



