SHORT-HORNS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 173 



ity. They desire the cow to be a good feeder, of good size, 

 with wide back and good hips, — a form that will give a good 

 weight of the best cuts of beef. They have learned that the 

 most economical method of producing milk is to feed gener- 

 ously, — keep their cows fleshy, — so that when circumstances 

 shall indicate that, for any reason, the cow has passed her use- 

 fulness in the milk dairy, she may, like the Darlingtons' cows, 

 sell to the butcher for a sum very nearly large enough to 

 purchase a successor. 



Such a cow is the short-horn ; and as the short-horn is the 

 dairy cow of England, so is she, without doubt, the cow for 

 the milk dairy of Massachusetts. There is, and always will 

 be, a brisk demand for cows at fair prices l)y the milk farm- 

 ers of this State, and they want the cow I have described 

 — the short-horn. This gives the farmers who live remote 

 from railroad stations or manufacturing centres an opportu- 

 nity to supplement their butter-taaking by the raising of 

 heifer calves upon their skimmed milk to supply this demand. 

 The short-horn cow will not only give good returns of good 

 butter, but she furnishes a generous flow of milk which, 

 when denuded of the cream is a good quality of skimmed 

 milk ; just the material, with the addition of a suitable 

 amount of grain food, with which to grow heifer calves to 

 supply the place of the old cows, and to sell to milkmen 

 who have no skimmed milk with which to raise successors to 

 their cows. 



TJiere is always a demand at generous prices for short- 

 horn steers for feeding. If the steers are well matched they 

 will bring a still higher price. A cattle trader in a town 

 adjacent to the one in which I live, informs me that he has a 

 standing ofier of six cents per pound live weight, for all the 

 well-matched, first-class, short-horn steers he can furnish. 

 But he is seldom obliged to sell such steers for six cents per 

 pound. It is surprising to what weights short-horn steers 

 will attain, even in Massachusetts, if well cared for. 



I find in Massachusetts Agricultural Report of the year 

 1852, from which I have before quoted, some weights of 

 short-horns which were exhibited at the difierent fairs in the 

 autumn of that year. They may be interesting in this con- 



