258 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



looks and condition, as well as their performances ; and as this 

 increases, more care and attention will be paid to matching, thus 

 increasing their beauty as well as their value and usefulness. 



Ezra Kendall, Chairman. 



From the Report of the Committee on Yearling Steers. 



The great agricultural interests of New England, and some of 

 the other older. States, being generally in the hands of men of 

 moderate means, and consequently a limited area of land, their 

 efforts in this useful branch of husbandry must necessarily be 

 directed to practical and profitable results. And to this end the 

 farmer, who attempts to raise this kind of stock, will of course 

 have one of two objects in view, viz. : to supply the stall, or the 

 yoke, because these are the great practical uses for which steers 

 and oxen are wanted at the present day. 



Now if the farmer would raise stock successfully for either of 

 the purposes above named, after having determined to engage in 

 the business, he should not commence till he has first definitely 

 fixed in his own mind the object for which his steers shall be 

 raised — whether for the stall or the yoke ; nor until he has 

 learned, so far as he may be able, what qualities are required in 

 the animal to best adapt it for the purpose designed. Having 

 done this, he should determine upon some plan or system by 

 which to be governed, and then go to work diligently to carry 

 out tliat plan, just as the skilful mechanic when he would con- 

 struct a good house or any thing else, first ascertains what qual- 

 ities are required to constitute a good article of the kind desired, 

 and then lays out his plan to secure those qualities, taking care 

 always to obtain the most approved plan at the beginning ; so the 

 would-be successful stock rearer should be careful in maturing 

 the plan of his work, and having once adopted it abide by it, till 

 successful, or he has found by experience that it is wrong. 



Every farmer engaging in this business, acting upon the 

 known law of reproduction in nature, " that like produces like," 

 with improvement by proper nurture and cultivation, should 

 select animals, both male and female, from which to raise his 

 stock, possessing in the highest degree practicable, those quali- 

 ties required by the object to which it is to be devoted ; and 

 having obtained his young animals, should commence at once to 



