14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



We are to bear iu mincl, also, that the stock of the mother 

 country aud of various other countries from which tlie 

 supplies of the colonists were drawn was not at that time 

 improved as we find it in the present day. It was long before 

 the interest in the improvement of stock had been awakened, 

 and it is a historical fact that the ox of that day was small 

 and ill-shaped, quite inferior to the ox of our own time ; that 

 the sheep has undergone a vast improvement, both in the 

 fineness and value of its wool and the size and quality of the 

 carcase, within the last century ; that throughout the earlier 

 part of the last century the average gross weight of the neat 

 cattle sent to Smithfield market did not exceed three hundred 

 and seventy pounds, and that of sheep twenty-eight pounds, 

 while the average weight of the former is now over eight 

 hundred pounds, and of the latter over eighty pounds. Nor 

 is it probable, on account of the high price of cattle at that 

 period, and the risks to which they were exposed, that the 

 colonists obtained the best specimens then known. In fact 

 the difference in animals, and what are now considered the 

 best points and the highest indications of improvement, 

 were nowhere understood or appreciated two centuries ago. 

 That the cattle of the early settlers were poor of their kind, 

 as compared with our ideas of the quality of similar animals, 

 is, therefore, plain enough to be understood. 



TREATMENT OF CATTLE. 



In addition to this, the means of keeping stock of any 

 kind, in such a manner as to secure any improvement in it, 

 were not at hand. The early colonists had no notion of rais- 

 ing grass or hay for their animals by artificial means. They 

 relied chiefly, and almost from necessity, upon the production 

 of natural meadows and the grasses upon the salt-marshes 

 along the sea-shore. The cattle, like their owners, had to 

 browse for their lives, and through the long northern winters 

 to live upon poor and miserable swale-hay. Death from 

 starvation and exposure was not uncommon, and sometimes 

 an entire herd fell victims to the severity of the season. The 

 most terrible droughts were of frequent occurrence, and 

 caused great distress. The Indian corn and the grasses 

 perished to such an extent that both grain and forage for 



