No. 4.] LIVE STOCK IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



287 



LIVE STOCK IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY J. A. FOORD, PROFESSOR OF FARM ADMINISTRATION, 

 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



The history of agriculture in our own and other countries shows 

 quite clearly that live-stock farming, carefully conducted, in con- 

 nection with rotation of crops, is the simplest and easiest method of 

 maintaining and increasing the fertility of the land, and thus insuring 

 a gradually increasing production. The live-stock industry in Massa- 

 chusetts is less important than it was ten, years ago, and it may not 

 be out of place to inquire whether or not this downward movement 

 is a healthy and profitable one for the farmer, and, as well, how it 

 may be checked. 



Dairy Cattle. 



Reliable statistics give the number of cattle in Massachusetts from 

 1890 to 1908 as follows: — 



Not only is the total number of cattle slowly decreasing, but the 

 proportion of "neat cattle other than cows," which was 23.7 per cent 

 of the total number in 1S90, dropped gradually until in 1907 it was 

 only 18 per cent; it was 18.4 per cent in 1908. This is only another 

 way of saying that Massachusetts farmers are raising fewer and fewer 

 of their own cows; attention has already been called to this tendency 

 in the report of the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture for 

 1908. 



Many dairy farmers in Massachusetts are neglecting one of the most 

 important branches of the business, that is, the breeding and improve- 

 ment of dairy cattle. The milk producers, especially in the eastern 



