42 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



the yoke or for the knife ; all that makes a cow good at 

 the jiail and afterwards for the butcher; all that makes a 

 hog valuable in flesh and fat. It is a mistake to suppose 

 that the improved breeds have been formed to please gen- 

 tlemen farmers and amateur fanciers. They have been per- 

 fected with an eye mainly to their profitableness to the far- 

 mer the real farmer. Nor are they the stock for large 

 farmers and rich proprietors alone. They are more 

 peculiarly suited to farmers of small or moderate means 

 than to any other; a rich farmer can afford to keep poor 

 stock, if anybody can ; but a small farmer is badly off indeed 

 if the little that he has is poor. 



3. No class of formers are more interested in having 

 good stock of all kinds than western farmers. Pork and 

 beef constitute, probably, three-fifths of their exports. It is 

 of the last importance that they should possess animals from 

 which can be made the utmost profit. It is as much more 

 profitable for an Indiana farmer to drive the very best cat- 

 tle, as it is for a Massachusetts farmer. If improved breeds 

 are found on the Mohawk to be vastly more profitable than 

 common stock, they will be found to be just the same on the 

 Wabash. 



It does not follow, either, because we have more corn 

 ihan we can feed, or more grass and hay than can be used, 

 that we can .make up for inferior quality by the greater 

 quantity of cattle kept. A western farmer may winter a 

 hundred head of cattle without positive loss, when a New 

 York farmer would sink money by it. But that is not the 

 question. Suppose two herds, of a hundred each, of four 

 year olds, preparing for the shambles. They eat the same 

 amount of grain, and hay or grass. But when AveiulmiLc- 

 tinie comes, one herd averages a fourth heavier than the 

 other, and this is clear profit. With no more food, and no 

 more labor, and no longer time in fattening, they yield the 

 owner a fourth more profit. 



Three men start a hundred hogs apiece for market. 



