70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and increasing its productiveness, and producing the largest 

 quantity of the most desiralile and profitable fodder, with a 

 view always of increasing tlie number of acres of improved 

 pasturage, and eventually turning his working cattle into 

 beef. 



Undoubtedly he would find it wise and profitable to clear 

 up, drain and convert the wet intervales into what would 

 prove his best and most permanent hay-producing acres. 

 He would cut and burn as much brush as possible and work 

 in grass seed, seeking at all times and in all ways to produce 

 more acres for pasturage and fodder. 



Questions of irrigation, judicious storage of water for 

 times of need, and iov power if that is needed, manures and 

 fertilizers, must all be studied and determined upon. He 

 must judiciously locate, build and equip his slaughter-houses 

 with reference to saving of time and expense, cleanliness of 

 the beef to be marketed and all its surroundings, and the 

 quickest and most profitable method of removing and dispos- 

 ing of all offal. 



He must search out and adopt all the known latest improve- 

 ments which will make his business most successful ; and 

 further, he must invoke to his aid science and inventive skill 

 to overcome any obstacles which mark the difi"erence between 

 the easy and almost laborless business of cattle-raising on 

 the plains, and the hard work and close calculation which are 

 the only insurers of progress and profit in most of our East- 

 ern enterprises. 



In the West, cattle-raising has been almost a spontaneity. 

 Here not a domestic animal can survive the changes of a 

 single year without constant watching and care. 



Were I to engage in this cattle-fattening industry, I should 

 most assuredly attempt to satisfy myself whether or not, 

 while I aimed at the production of the best beef, I could not 

 attach as profitable auxiliaries the raising of fowls, sheep 

 and swine. If they could be made profitable as adjuncts, I 

 should be pleased to inform my customers that I could fur- 

 nish beef, fowls, eggs, mutton and pork, all home fattened. 



There is one thing which I have almost admitted to be 

 impossible, viz., the profitable raising of cattle in New 

 P^ngland. 



