138 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



March 



lands produce twenty bushels of wheat to the acre. 

 The Durhams of his stock were exceedingly fine ; 

 hut a Devon animal, fed in the same way, was 

 quite inferior, and was kept. Col. C. said, to afToid 

 a contrast. He would not accept a herd of Devon 

 cattle and propagate them. But, said Mr. Brown, 

 the probability is, that the Durham stock would 

 not do as well here. The Devons are wholly un- 

 like the Durhams, in color, form, and very often in 

 temper. The former are smaller, quick in motion, 

 good travellers, and perhaps make the best work- 

 ing oxen we have. Some native cattle may be as 

 good ; but of five hundred Devons and five hundred 

 natives, there will be a greater number of excellent 

 workers among the Devons. 



As to the climate of Massachusetts, he did not 

 believe there was a better in the world for cattle 

 or man. It is certainly better than that of the 

 western States. Nothing can exceed the beauty of 

 our climate in the autumnal months. The Here- 

 fords have ^Iso been introduced here. They are 

 usually marked with a white face, and some 

 writer has said they have shorter legs than Dur- 

 ham or Devons. But after all, almost every- 

 thing depends on the manner in which cattle are 

 taken care of, after having obtained such a breed 

 as you are not ashamed to have seen on your farm. 

 More pains should be taken to rear good cows for 

 milk, so that there may be less importation from 

 neigboring States. Those who have good cows 

 should raise the handsomest heifer calves. If more 

 attention was given to the rearing of good heifers 

 from cows that are good milkers, we should soon 

 have the whole number of 150,000 or 180,000 

 cows in this State, of the very best kind, and all 

 our neat stock would be greatly improved. There 

 were several other breeds which he would leave 

 others to remark upon. In concluding, Mr. Brown 

 hoped gentlemen who have given especial atten- 

 tion to the- subject, would give their opinion upon 

 the question whether it is best that heifers should 

 come in at two or three years of age. 



Mr. W. J. BuCKMiNSTER inquired whether Mr. 

 Brown would consider the pure Devons as the 

 best for work. 



Mr. Brown said he did not suppose we could 

 find many pure Devons ; but in his remarks he had 

 referred to those in which the Devon blood largely 

 prevails, in combination with that of other stock. 



Mr. Wetiierell, Assistant Secretary of the 

 Board of Agriculture, thought there were no better 

 working cattle to be found in this country than we 

 have in Massachusetts. He had travelled through 

 some of the western States, and in Illinois particu- 

 larly, he found the Durham cattle to be the best. 

 He thought that breed might properly be styled 

 the nobility of the cattle kind. Probably they 

 nave never been equalled, either in beauty or touch. 

 But the working cattle in Illinois are generally 



small, and as poor as Pharaoh's lean kine. The 

 question whence came the native stock of New 

 England was then touched upon. The cattle im- 

 ported by the Plymouth Colony he thought were 

 generally Devons. Mr. Mason imported into New 

 Hampshire a large number of cattle from Den- 

 mark. They were of a yellow color. Some of 

 his stock was introduced into this part of Massa- 

 chusetts. With reference to the milking qualities 

 of cattle, he did not believe that any had ever been 

 imported that had been equal to some of our native 

 stock. The Oakes cow,' of Dan vers, -was referred 

 to as one that no imported cow had ever equalled. 

 Mr. Wetiierell closed by urging all farmers to 

 give more attention to the raising of good cows, 

 and to experiments to show what cows would pro- 

 duce the greatest profit from the same amount of 

 feed. As to the Ayrshire cows, he said that a 

 writer, describing the cattle of Scotland in 1790, 

 made no mention of them ; but another writer in 

 1825 describes them as being rather inferior. 



Mr. Howard, of the Cultivator, followed. He 

 thought there were several breeds of cattle import- 

 ed at PI} mouth. The description given of the 

 cattle imported there, is quite opposite to that of 

 the Devons, in many respects. Some were said to 

 be red, one was said to have a white back, one was 

 brindle and one was brown. As the Devons have 

 always been red, evidently the rattle at Plymouth 

 were not Devons generally. Where they were ob- 

 tained is not known. They corresponded more 

 nearly to the cattle of Wales or Cornwall than to 

 those of any other part of the island of Great Brit- 

 ain. ^Ir. Howard referred particularly to the ex- 

 periments which have been made by Mr. Sheldon, 

 of Wilmington, and spoke very highly of what he 

 has done to show the advantage of raising native 

 cattle. With reference to the Ayrshire cattle, he 

 said they were known for a long time as the Dun- 

 lop breed, taking their name from a family that 

 first introduced them from England. Under that 

 name they were highly celebrated. The Oakes cow 

 which had been referred to, he said, never had a 

 calf that was good for milk, though she hads'^veraJ 

 heifer calves. 



Mr. G. M. FiTcn, a member of the House of 

 Representatives from Sheffield, considered the 

 Durhams as far superior to other cattle for beef, 

 where the feed was suited to them ; l)ut for work 

 he preferred a cross of Devon and native cattle, or 

 better still, viith an addition of some Durham blood 

 to the mixture. Pure Durhams are not adapted 

 to the greatest part of the State. They do well 

 in the valley of the Connecticut ; but as workers 

 they are dull, and not equal to the mixed stock of 

 Devon, Native and Durham. As milkers, too, the 

 Durhams are inferior ; he never knew a pure Dur- 

 ham that would be called an excellent cow for 

 milk. He preferred to have his heifers come in at 



