12 Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
2. Edington Mains, Chienside, N.B. 
Instead of a categorical reply to your questions, I think it better to offer 
some remarks which will have a general reference to the matter embraced b}'' 
them. Perhaps I cannot do this more effectively than by narrating some of 
the chanf];es in cattle-husbandry that have taken place in Berwickshire within 
my own recollection. Sixty years ago every arable farm, with trifling excep- 
tions, had its annual bare fallow-break ; and the growing of turnips was 
confined to the naturally dry soils. Even on these, this crop was still further 
restricted by the want of any extraneous supply of manure. At that time 
the number of cattle bred and reared in the county was very much larger than 
it is now. For the most part, these cattle left tlie district as two-year-olds ; 
part of them direct to the butcher-market, but a large jwrtion of them to be 
fattened off in the rich pastures of the midland counties of England. Manj' 
of them were very fine cattle. I know that my father sometimes turned out a 
lot of two-year-old steers that averaged 70 stone, imperial, each. However, 
the county, as a whole, then reared more cattle than it could fatten. The 
introduction of bone-manure, soon followed by tile-draining, has wrought a 
complete revolution in our husbandry. Bare fallow has all but disappeared, 
and a fifth part, at least, of the whole arable land is annually' under turnips. 
Not only so, but the weight of the root-crop per acre is now very much 
greater than formerly. Still further, the cattle were then fed on turnips and 
straw only. Now the use of linsecd-cakes and other extraneous feeding-stuffs 
is rmiversal. As the result of these changes this county now annually .sends 
to market at least four times more cattle and three times more sheep than 
it did sixty years ago ; and it sends them direct to the fat market. With the 
aid of its Lammerrauir grazings, the county still more than supplies its own 
requirements in sheep ; but as regards cattle, I suppose that at least five- 
sixths of its annual cast are bred and partly reared elsewhere. Our farms 
now produce winter food for a much larger number of cattle than our pastures 
can keep in summer. Happily for all concerned, these conditions are exactly 
reversed in the districts from which our supplies of young cattle are chiefly 
drawn. In ordinary seasons, during August and September, when our pastures 
are parched and bare, and we are at our wits'-end to know how to keep our 
stock from falling off, one has but to visit the dales in the north-west of Eng- 
land to find the pastures and eddishes full of luxuriant grass and thriving cattle, 
with an all but total absence of corn and turnips. A few weeks later in the 
autumn the Dalesmen are glad to dispose of their surplus cattle 'to the 
arable farmers of Tweedside and Lothian, who then need them to consume 
their turnips. Climate being a condition beyond human control, these parties 
do well each to pursue the system best adapted to their respective circum- 
stances. Another all-important clement in determining the question Vhether 
the turnip-growers of the eastern counties should breed their own cattle or 
buy them in as stores, is the rent of land. This is so much greater per acre in 
the case of the fertile arable lands of the eastern counties than in that of the 
rough pasture lands of the north of England, that an increase in the market- 
value of a store bullock that would leave a good profit in the latter districts, 
might leave no margin at all in tlie former. As a matter of fact, the farmers, 
of our best turnip-growing districts have, for the past thirty-five years or 
thereabouts, found it more profitable to buy young cattle than to breed them. 
As this fact became apjiarent, they ceased to breed on the same scale as they 
had formerly done. As practical men of business, they changed their systtni 
to meet altered conditions; and of course will do so again in whatever direc- 
tion Jind to whatever extent the element of profit guides them. The weakest 
point in our present system is in the (jualily of our bought-in cattle. A very 
large i)roportion of them are of a mongrel and inferior breed, and a still larger 
