1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



169 



Mr. White, of Petersham, had been a farmer 

 32 years, and the most successful course he had 

 pursued was the use of the plow. He did not 

 agree with the Chairman in cropping with buck- 

 wheat, as a neighbor of his had done so until he 

 could not even get a crop of that. For three 

 years the speaker said he had plowed in oats, and 

 the crops remunerated him for all the expense. 

 All he had done to his land for 27 years was to 

 turn in green crops and use 1^ bushels of plaster 

 to the acre. He did not understand sheep hus- 

 bandry but had his doubts of its great profit all 

 over the State. 



It having been announced that the subject for 

 discussion at the next meeting would be '^Wkat 

 breeds of cattle are best adapted to the agricul- 

 ture of this CommonwealthV the meeting ad- 

 journed. 



OXEN THAT HAVE3 BEEN WORKED 

 MAKE THE BEST BEEP, 



Animals that have not been worked, have not, 

 therefore, taken so much exercise, nor made much 

 of any involuntary exertion. They have Jiot worn 

 off their tissues, nor thus created the necessity of 

 their renewal. They have not breathed so much 

 air, and its necessary proportion of oxygen, for 

 the same reason, viz., because the rate of breath- 

 ing as well as that of wear, depends upon, and is 

 naturally proportioned to the amount of activity 

 or exercise. 



The purification of the blood depends upon the 

 rate and completeness of its renewal ; and its re- 

 newal is regulated by the degree of exercise, con- 

 trolling the quantity of supply of oxygen. Hence 

 it will be evident that those animals which at a 

 given age have made the most active and largest 

 degree of exertion, must have had their muscles 

 most worn, and their blood oftenest renewed and 

 purified. 



Animals that walk at the rate of two and a half 

 miles per hour — about the pace, or what should 

 be, of cattle at work — inhale and pass through 

 their blood twice the amount of air consumed by 

 those standing still, in the same length of time. 

 This involves double the amount of excretion of 

 worn off, and therefore effete matter to be expell- 

 ed from the system, commingled with and con- 

 taminating an equal volume of exhaled air, or 

 poisonous exhalations, from both skin and lungs. 

 The greater the proportion and amount of oxygen 

 consumed, the more complete is the renewal of 

 the blood, by the corresponding expulsion of its 

 impurities ; and as is the arterial or red blood in 

 quality and purity, so must be the muscular flesh 

 which is formed by its liquid and solid deposits, 

 as a matter of cause and consequence. 



On the one hand, then, we perceive that cattle 

 that have not worked come to the stalls with 

 blood and meat that have not been so often re- 

 newed, purified, and changed. And such animals 

 having more effete matter in their circulation, the 

 latter is more sluggish, and digestion and assim- 

 ilation less rapid. When thus put up they are 

 less capable of rapid change and nutrition, and 

 gain less rapidly in a poorer product of beef. On 

 the other hand, previously worked animals come 



in with purer blood, and firmer, better muscles ; 

 with better appetites, and healthier digestive 

 power ; they accumulate substance faster, because 

 of their better blood and digestive power. And, 

 with a purer and healthier muscular structure for 

 its foundation, to begin with, oxen and steers 

 that have been worked and therefore had their 

 tissues renewed and purified, in proportion to 

 their extra exertion, make sweeter and more 

 wholesome beef. Such is my experience and ob- 

 servation, as well as that of Judge Megis and 

 many others. — American Stock Journal. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 LANDS IN AROOSTOOK, ME. 



Mr. Editor : — I want some information in re- 

 gard to Aroostook county, Maine ; I have been 

 informed that good farming land can be bought 

 there for 50 cts. an acre. A Young Farmer. 



Beverly, February, 1861. 



Remarks. — In speaking of the rapidity with' 

 which the Aroostook region is filling up with pop- 

 ulation, the Land Agent of Maine, in his recent, 

 report to the Legislature of that State, says : — 



In the decade thus closed, the increase of pop- 

 ulation in the county has been in theunprecedent-- 

 ed ratio of eighty per cent., the aggregate im 

 1850 being 12,533, and in 1860, 22,489. Large 

 as this appears, it yet fails to give a proper idea 

 of the present rate of growth, for during the last 

 three years, the additions to the population have 

 been quite as large as they were the first seven 

 years of the decade, and there is a steady annual 

 increase, not only in the aggregate but in the ra- 

 tio, reckoning from the fixed number in 1850. 



In no section of our country can a more intel- 

 ligent and enterprising class of men be found — a 

 class better fitted to endure the toils and priva- 

 tions of frontier life, or to establish the institu- 

 tions, which are at once the distinguishing mark 

 and the ornament of a New England community. 

 During the year thus closing, their industry has 

 been rewarded with most abundant crops, and the 

 inhabitants are more than ever persuaded that 

 Aroostook is destined to be the most beautiful 

 and productive portion of our State. 



Among the causes leading to this rapid devel- 

 opment of Aroostook, the most potential and de- 

 cisive is that to be found in the beneficent policy 

 pursued by the State, in regard to its settling 

 lands. Sold as they are at the low price of fifty 

 cents per acre, and payment received in work on 

 the public roads, within three years from the date 

 of purchase, an opportunity is afforded for indus- 

 trious and worthy men to acquire an indepen- 

 dence on easier terms than can elsewhere be pre- 

 sented. ' 



Sheep and Hay. — The Ohio Cultivator, pub- 

 lishes the official returns, from each county in the 

 State, of the number and value of sheep killed, 

 and of those injured by dogs, and of the acres 

 and tons of "meadow crops." The total damage 

 to sheep in Ohio, by dogs, in 1859, was $101,895. 

 Hay averages a small fraction over one ton to an. 

 acre — 1,340,515 acres produced 1,365,987 tons. 



