ILLIBrOIS DJirRTMBN'S ASSOCIATION. 49 



improved stock, and by the careful, painstaking effort of many of its stock- 

 men ; and this would seem to be a very conservative estimate, when we con- 

 sider that in some districts scarcely an animal can be found that does not 

 give evidence of improved blood, and too, when we remember that neither 

 time nor expense has been spared to bring to our State, from all the best 

 that can be found on two continents, that is supposed at least to be in the 

 line of improvement. Yet I fear many of us are suffering loss by not prop* 

 erly appreciating the value of the efforts made by the enthusiastic artist in 

 live stock improvement. It is a loss to keep three sheep to get the clip of 

 one; or two, to get the carcass of one. It is at a serious loss that we grow 

 beef cattle that at three years are worth less than Heref ords or iShorthorns at 

 two, or that we content ourselves with a one-pound per day butter cow, when 

 three is possible. The extortionate prices asked, and sometimes received^ 

 often prevents many farmers from making the improvement their better 

 judgment indicates would be desirable. 



At this present time, there is within the reach of every farmer, or stock 

 grower, both in price and quality, better by far than the average animals of 

 the country, because they have been made so by the skill and intelligence of 

 experts in breeding and feeding. The same is equally true of all the grains 

 and vegetables of the farm. I hope to live to see the day when native, or 

 scrub, as applied to farm animals, shall not be known in the farmer's vocab- 

 ulary ; when every animal shall contribute its full share in supplying the 

 wants of man, by being a model in its class, with the scrub class left out. 

 Time forbids that I should enumerate further. 



There are to the thinking, observing agriculturalist, many questions as 

 yet not fully decided, whether profit or loss shall be the result of following a 

 seeming plain course. The last three fat stock shows, seem to have demon- 

 strated to a certainty, that young animals give greater gain, both per day and 

 for feed consumed, than older ones. This is true under the high pressure 

 plan under which all these animals are prepared for these shows, and under 

 this system they are ripe for the shambles at an early age. The experience 

 of many cattle men confirms the fact that an animal fed on grass, and with a 

 cheap winter ration, will make his greatest gain the third year. The unsolv- 

 ed part of this question, is whether the greater profit shall De with the man 

 who decides to push his animal to early maturity, taking his chances of 

 producing constitutional weakness, and with it disease— as we have evidently 

 done in swine— or with the one who prefers a cheaper and more lengthy 

 course of bringing these animals to maturity. 



Another of these questions of doubtful propriety, is the growing of artic" 

 les, with which the market is already overstocked. With barely one excep- 

 tion, the " seven fat kine," have been devoured by " the seven lean kine," 

 the " seven years of plenty," have been followed by "■ seven years of famine." 

 The exception is the long years the wool growers have waited for remuner- 

 ative prices, waiting only to see their business destroyed by competition 

 with foreign wools. It seems but folly for the wheat grower, to think of 

 putting more wheat on this present overstocked market, but what will be his 

 chagrin a few years hence, having changed to the live stock business, to hear 



