106 MOx\THLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



slow motion, and have not time to discuss that point. For a dissertation that 

 covers the whole ground of gearing, breaking and training, and their capacity 

 and relative value as compared with the horse, 1 refer you to Stabler's valuable 

 Prize Essay in the old American Farmer. As to the objection to the heat of the 

 climate I can only say, as far as that applies to the liigh Counties of Virginia, 

 that I have been rambling among them most agreeably since the first week in. 

 June up to this, 26th of July, and have but once seen the mercury as high as82'* 

 — while the papers tell us it has been in Boston repeatedly above 90° — and 

 nothing has more frequently occurred to me than how it would do a true farm- 

 er's heart good to see a Worcester County, Massachusetts, farmer, following one 

 of Moore 6c Ruggles's, or Prouty & Mears's plows in the limestone Valley of 

 Shenandoah, or along the stony mountain sides of Rappahannock, with his span 

 of oxen, such as I have seen hack a heavy cart up hill, steeper than that which 

 leads directly up to the Warm Springs House, with four thousand loeight of 

 stone in it !■ — But 1 have been insensibly led away again from the line of personal 

 observation prescribed for these desultory remarks, and must return to the sub- 

 ject of grazing in the Valley. The " stock" cattle are driven down the V'^alley 

 from September to November, and are carried through the winter on wheat-straw 

 and hay, and fattened on grass in summer. The average price of these stock- 

 cattle last autumn was $14 a head. Where they are designed to be sold in 

 late spring or early summer, they are "me«/c(f " through the winter, and always 

 " salted" twice a week. They are expected to average 500 or more, and the 

 general calculation with the grazier is to sell at from 75 to 100 per cent, advance 

 on first cost ; but to this first cost is to be added labor and interest on the value 

 of the land, &c. Here is, undoubtedly, a much-neglected, nay, altogether unu- 

 tilized branch of agricultural economy in the tide-water counties of Maryland and 

 Virginia, where thousands of cattle might be reared on the marshes, and carried 

 through the winter on wheat-straw and corn-fodder ; and if not ultimately fat- 

 tened they might, at three and four years old, be gathered into droves in early 

 autumn, and driven up for sale as stock-cattle into Counties nearer to market, and 

 where men have the enterprise to improve their lands and provide the means of 

 fattening. 1 have no hesitation in believing that the tide-water Counties of Ma- 

 ryland might add one hundred thousand dollars of clear incoriie to their present 

 resources from the present source alone. But because the result in a single case 

 might not justify the attempt, the amount not warranting the trouble, they have 

 not the enterprise to form a system. But how can men be expected to combine, 

 collectively, their judgment and resources, who have not been educated and 

 trained individually to think, and to turn over and examine all the elements of 

 success in their profession ? True, for example, it might be no object for a single 

 farmer, with no matter how much waste marsh land in summer, and wheat-straw 

 and corn-lodder in winter, to add — as all such farmers might do — 3 or 4 or 8 or 

 10 to the number of his young stock-cattle, because he might not expect a uniform 

 and remunerating market at home, and so few would not bear driving to a dis- 

 tant one ; but how easy to unite with his neighbors to make up, in the month 

 of September, a drove of one or two hundred ! — Avhereby, almost without a dol- 

 lar's cost, that much enough to pay his taxes, or tiie blacksmith's or the grocer's 

 bill at least, might be added to his income ? But how much more exhilarating 

 to attend a parly caucus, and there listen to the slang-whanging of party dema- 

 gogues, than to be studying the principles, and investigating the resources and 

 materials of Agricultural Industry — its literature, and the natural history that 

 naturally belongs to it ! How much more congenial for Indolence to sit waiting 

 for some lucky turn of fortune — to indulge in dreams of being some day poked 

 into some sinecure ofKce, than to be troubled with acquiring the various knowl- 

 edge that appertains properly to the art of Agriculture, lifting it out of the mire, 

 and elevating it from a mere laborious, toilsome drudgery to the condition of a 

 higli, noble, intellectual and accomplished pursuit ? — Such men, though them- 

 selves without a spark of the right sort of ambition, cannot realize the truth that 



Cato fnmiLng more independent feels 

 Than Cwear with the Senate at his heeb." 



Though indignation always overcomes me when I think of the convenient and 

 stupid doctrine of those who maintain that farmers have nothing to learn from 

 looks, (as ii knowledge and experience ceased to be knowledge and experience 



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