Agriculture is the most Heal+hy and Honorable, as it is the most Natural and Useful pursuit of Man. 



fe. 



'II 



YOL. XII. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y. — MARCH, 1851. 



NO. 3. 



THE BREEDINCJ AND REARIK& OF DOMESTIC 

 ■ ANIMALS. 



The farmers of the United States possess every ad- 

 vantage to excel in the breeding and rearing of 

 domestic animals. They have an abundance of land 

 for tillage, meadow, and pasture ; and climates admi- 

 rably adapted to the production of grass, roots, and 

 grain. Horses, mules, neat cattle, sheep, and swine, 

 are healthy, sufficiently long-lived, and profitable, 

 when skilfully managed. In nearly one-half of the 

 States, a good mule is worth $100, and an ordinary 

 one of fair size is worth $70 ; while the cost of rear- 

 ing until he is three years old, is no more than to 

 keep a steer to the same age. As a mule will per- 

 form hard labor twenty-five or thirty years, or more 

 than twice as long as a horse, particularly at the 

 south, the demand tor these field servants keeps pace 

 with the wonderful consumption of calico, shirting, 

 and other cotton fabrics. Mules are wanted for 

 growing tobacco, which two-thirds of the men, and 

 boys over ten years old, either chew or smoke, or 

 both, every day in the year. For the culture of corn, 

 as well as sugar cane and rice, mules are much pre- 

 ferred to horses : the latter, however, sell high in the 

 southern States, for carriage use and riding. The 

 wife of almost every planter who is doing well, keeps 

 her carriage and a pair of horses worth from $200 to 

 $500 ; and every son and daughter big enough to 

 ride, wants a saddle-horse besides. As population 

 and wealth increase throughout the country, the de- 

 mand for fine animals of all kinds augments in an 

 equal if not a greater ratio. Ordinary cows sell in 

 Georgia at from $6 to $10 a head, extraordinary ones 

 bring readily from $50 to $150 each. We saw a 

 native cow sold at the latter price at the State Fair 

 in 1849, not so good as we have bought in Erie 

 county for $13. 



No other department of rural industry pays so well 

 at this time as the breeding and rearing of superior 

 stock. This is a branch of business which nearly 

 every farmer thinks he understands perfectly, but 

 after all, the results of his practice prove that he is 

 mistaken. A large share of the best stock imported 

 into the United States has deteriorated from the care- 

 lessness or ignorance of those into whose hands it 

 has been committed. Until the art and science of 

 breeding and keeping domestic animals are more 

 generally studied, and more highly esteemed, the 

 number of first rate horses, mules, neat cattle, sheep, 

 and hogs, will be comparatively small. We have 



recently estimated, in a public document, the num- 

 ber of horses and mules in the country at six mil- 

 lions, and we are confident that their average value 

 might be increased, by a course of skilful breeding-, 

 in a few generations, $30 a head. This would be 

 equivalent to creating a capital of $180,000,000. A 

 horse or a mule worth $90 dollars is as easily kept 

 \vhen reared, as one worth but $80 ; and the same 

 rule applies to the rearing and keep of swine, sheep, 

 steers for the shambles, working oxen, and dairy 

 cows. The farmers of Belgium and Holland make 

 more beef, according to the area under cultivation, 

 than is produced elsevi^here in Europe, and they mar- 

 ket most of their cattle before they are three years 

 old. Every calf designed for meat, should be ready 

 for the butcher by the time a thousand days have 

 passed over its head ; and it should never form less 

 than a pound of good meat in twenty-four hours, for 

 its owner. 



How can a farmer use the digestive organs of a 

 calf 1000 days to the best advantage 1 An engineer 

 is required to study every part of the machinery under 

 his control. He must be familiar with the building 

 and strength of each tube, valve, cylinder, and joint, 

 in the most complex steam engine, to work it with 

 the largest profit. What is a calf, colt, pig, or lamb, 

 but a small locomotive in the hands of an agricultu- 

 ral engineer ? How few engineers of this class have 

 carefully investigated the nature and strength of the 

 complex machinery which elaborates milk, butter, 

 cheese, wool, meat, or produces the valuable physical 

 powers of the ox, mule, and horse ? The time has 

 come when the anatomy and physiology of these 

 wealth-creating animals should be universally under- 

 stood. Their internal organization and external 

 symmetry, their intrinsic value and productiveness, 

 as well as beauty, can never be fully appreciated be- 

 fore science enlightens the understanding of the 

 stock-grower. That all kinds of food in all sorts of 

 conditions may be given to cattle, sheep, and hogs, 

 with equal benefit and profit, no one pretends ; but 

 when we presume to say how animals shall be fed, 

 and what they should consume, there are almost as 

 many opinions as farmers. Where butter is high, 

 and calves are reared on skim-milk and butter-milk, 

 experience in Europe has confirmed the teachings of 

 science, that molasses, used to sweeten milk deprived 

 of its butter, is the best substitute in the system of 

 the calf. Bread and sweetened water may not be so 

 nutritious in the stomach of a growing child as bread 

 and butter, but it is better than bread and pure water. 



