ADDRESS. 



15 



number of milch cows in Worcester county in round 

 numbers, is 34,000 against 40,000 in Ayrshire, and of 

 other cattle, old and young, 28,000 here against 45,000 

 there, which, making a total of 62,000 against 84,000, 

 in view of whatever difference there may be in natural 

 capacity, we may suppose to compare perhaps as favor- 

 ably as we could expect. But now take the sheep, — 

 and Worcester county, with all its admirable grazing 

 lands, with all its productive power for hay and Indian 

 corn and roots, w T ith all its facilities for the purchase for 

 feeding of the sheep brought down from the North and 

 West by railroad to your very doors — with its 700,000 

 acres of land almost immediately adjacent to one of the 

 largest cities in America, and with a constantly growing 

 manufacturing population of its own, can only muster 

 about 6,000 sheep— less than there are on some single 

 estates in Great Britain, against almost a quarter of a 

 million — forty times as many in the county of Ayr. 



Now, gentlemen, I have already adverted to the fact 

 that experience in any particular region, ends by 

 settling down more or less definitively upon some partic- 

 ular branch of farming ; and so much weight, I am 

 willing to admit, should be given to the practical con- 

 clusions thus arrived at, as to render it somewhat 

 hazardous to advocate the adoption of fundamental 

 changes except for the strongest and clearest reasons. 

 And what I would suggest here, is rather an effort to 

 augment the stock of the farm, to reach, a little more 

 nearly the standard in Ayrshire, for example, and to 

 render the land more productive of food to keep that 

 stock, and thus more productive of manures to add in 

 turn to its own fertility — than that any of the stock 

 you are now keeping should be discarded to make way 



