Pboceedings of iHE Faemefs' Club. 667 



this change was that the production of butter and cheese in this 

 country could be vastly increased, thus adding to the wealth of the 

 nation, if the farmers upon the other side of the border should grow 

 the calves and raise the cows until they became productive machines, 

 and thus relieve our own dairymen from the profitless trouble and 

 necessity of growing their own cows. This improvement would, 

 doubtless, have been adopted had not our legislative fathers loaded 

 down the idea wath local and pei-sonal measures which crushed it to 

 the earth. This propensity to saddle schemes that will not stand 

 alone upon more popular and praiseworthy objects, until they, too, 

 fall by their muchness, is not a new characteristic or practice of 

 legislators. Now that the country is blessed with the full fruition 

 of peace, and laws are made to lessen the burdens of the people and 

 stimulate the expansion of its material interests, the improve- 

 ment of live stock should come in for its share of public attention. 

 In my opinion, the importers and breeders of thorough-bred stock 

 are entitled to be considered public benefactors, and to urge their 

 cause is both right and just. The government should remove a tax 

 which is but a very small part of the great aggregate income for 

 the treasury, but an onerous burden upon those who are willing to 

 venture their capital for the public good ; for thousands of dollars 

 have been sunk by the importer where one has been made. At least 

 twenty-five per cent would be added to the value of our neat cattle 

 and to the size of the bodies of our sheep, a point in which American 

 sheep eminently fail, by a liberal infusion of foreign blood ; but the 

 high tarifi" and the risks attending importation, coupled with the 

 original cost, must necessarily cause the price of thorough-bred stock 

 to be beyond the means of the great mass of American farmers. If 

 the twenty per cent could be abolished, a healthful and vigorous 

 impulse to importation and breeding would be created, and in a 

 short time thorough-bred animals would be universal. At present but 

 little stock is imported beyond what is required to keep up the 

 character and blood of our select flocks and herds. " Of course," 

 says one of our leading stock men, " it is to our advantage as breeders, 

 having established our herd, to keep on the present duties, as they 

 act practically as a prohibtion, and parties, who would otherwise 

 import now come to us, consequently prices are higher than they other- 

 wise would be for first-class animals." It is for the great pul^lic we 

 would speak ; and if we must have a duty, let it be specific, and not 

 ad valorem^ which acts as a direct preventive to purchasing abroad 



