40 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



herds and flocks purely bred to sustain the supply of blood for 

 crossing ; but the practical farmer will find, here as in Great 

 Britain, that the crosses are the best tools he can work with in 

 carrying on his farm, and making the cash account come out 

 right at the end of the year. With slieep, the ewes required 

 should be good motliers as a first requisite, and tlien, whatever 

 their size or breed, lambs sired by South Down or Oxford 

 Down or Cotswold or Leicester blood, will be pretty sure to 

 pay their way. 



IL Grazing and Feeding. — In what has been said under 

 the head of Breeding, it has been taken for granted that the 

 stock bred were to be fitted for slaughter or retained for use, 

 not necessarily in the hands of the breeder, but at least within 

 the limits of your own State. Time will oblige me to restrict 

 myself only to remarks of the most general kind, both under 

 this head and under that of Dairying, keeping in view the 

 broad results ive desire to attain, rather than the details by 

 which they are to be accomplisiied. 



Breeding, and grazing or feeding, naturally divide themselves 

 in some degree, into separate pursuits ; and stock commonly 

 passes into second hands for the latter purpose before going to 

 market. At the same time, the farmer who raises young stock 

 naturally has more or less concern with fitting it for the sham- 

 bles. Aside from the fact that working oxen are largely 

 employed here, in the labors of the farm, most of which are 

 probably reared and trained at home, and after their term of 

 service is over, may well be put up to fatten ; your ready mar- 

 kets afford good inducements for the breeding of calves and 

 lambs, expressly to bo fattened by the farmer raising them. 

 Secondly, the opportunity of purchasing cattle and sheep 

 coming into Brighton and Cambridge, when markets are low, 

 and those not already in prime order can be bought to advan- 

 tage, and of then keeping theiji in pasture or stall until a good 

 market gives the means of selling at a fair re turn, 'is one of 

 which there are doubtless many among you who frequently 

 avail themselves. And, in the third place, there is the surplus 

 of the young stock bred in a higher latitude, which naturally 

 comes here to be " finished off," if not to acquire the bulk of 

 the flesh it must attain for slaughter. 



