MARKET DAYS. 335 



similarly situated, and thus the two are brouglit into a position 

 to make some sort of a trade, which may be mutually advanta- 

 geous. Now these men might have ridden about a week or more 

 exploring- barnyards and fields for an odd ox — and what farmer's 

 experience does not illustrate the supposed case ? — and perhaps 

 be unsuccessful at last. 



Again, many farmers wish to purchase in the fall young stock 

 to keep over winter, generally heifers expected to calve in the 

 spring. Heretofore, when cattle travelled on foot in droves to 

 the Brighton market, they came so near their doors as to present 

 a good opportunity for such ftirmers to make their purchases. 

 But now live stock is mostly transported to the large markets 

 by the rail cars, and there is hardly any alternative for the 

 farmer to make his purchases, but at these distant markets. 

 Were local fairs or market days established, then there would 

 doubtless be droves of cattle purchased at the large markets 

 at Cambridge and Brighton, and driven down to such fairs to 

 supply the demand there. The farmer could then have his 

 choice of such stock and at a price that while it would leave a 

 fair profit to the drovers, would be less than he could afford to 

 pay at a distant market. This would occur only in districts 

 where there were not young animals enough raised, to supply 

 the local demand. 



It may be, too, that among the benefits to be derived from 

 establishing regular fairs throughout the State, would be the 

 encouragement they would thus indirectly give to stock hus- 

 bandry, a branch of husbandry of late sadly neglected by us. 

 The farmer is now tempted by the high prices offered, to sell 

 his best calves at an early age to the butcher. And in fact their 

 slaughtered carcasses are brought by the cars and by steamboats 

 from New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, to supply the Boston 

 market. Thus the number of neat animals raised to maturity, 

 has not kept up with the wants of the community, and as a 

 consequence the price of beef animals, milch cows and working 

 cattle, has experienced a most unprecedented increase. If the 

 farmer could find purchasers for two-year-old heifers and steers, 

 as readily as for calves and at corresponding prices, what should 

 hinder his making the attempt to rear them ? It will be said 

 perhaps, that he has not the fodder to keep them over winter in 

 any numbers, without encroaching on the feed of his other 



