16 
Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
hunters and racers. Except on a small scale, cattle- and sheep-breeding are 
preferable to horse-breeding. 
I have known several fanners from time to time give up horse-breeding on 
a large scale as unprofitable. 
I have known some go largely into horse-breeding, but they all returned 
again to cattle- and sheep-breeding. Several farmers of my acquaintance 
have changed from extensive cattle-breeding to sheep-breeding, and vice 
versa ; but as soil and situation are the governing points in this consideration, 
it is plain that as sheep naturally dehght in the high and dry lands, and the 
cow in the plains, any great deviation from this natural order of things will 
ultimately entail loss on a farmer who persists in carrying it on. 
There has been a class of mare in Ireland from time immemorial which may 
be called lialf-bred, still she is nothing like what you could produce between 
a Clydesdale or Suffolk mare and a race-horse ; in that case the strain would 
be too great, and you would be sure to obtain no symmetry ; but the Irish 
jnare proj)er is stout, without much hair on the fetlocks, with good ribs, 
shoulders a good deal slanted, and a sweet, though not small head. This 
class of mare is equal to about a ton or 25 cwt. ou all the highways, and can 
trot with ease about 6 miles an hour, returning with the empty cart. She is 
found the most valuable in Ireland for general purposes. Put to a racer, she 
breeds a capital hunter ; to a Cl5'desdale or Suffolk, she throws a valuable heavy 
cart-horse ; or to a stallion of her own class, she produces a useful animal, quite 
saleable, but not so likely to fetch as high a price as if crossed with such horses 
as above mentioned. In cattle the cross with the Shorthorn has no equal. 
In sheep the Border-Leicester and Shropshire Down are the favourites. In 
Tipperary, the Lincoln cross is much esteemed. There are also some good 
flocks of English Leicesters, and Eoscommons or Irish sheep ; still the Border- 
Leicester is most common, and next to that the Shropshire Down. The 
former prevails in North Cork and the latter in South Cork. A cross between 
both produces a very profitable animal. 
James Byrne. 
5. Waelaby, Northallerton. 
Referring to your questions generally, I should say that so very much 
depends ou situation, climate, and nature of soil on a farm, that it would be 
impossible to lay down any rule for a district like mine, where there may be 
found as fine grazing-land as in any jiart of England, as well as a large" iwrtion 
of inferior and bad clays. 
Sixty to seventy years ago (taking an area of 15 to 20 miles round) this 
district was the nursery, in which were bred those herds of Shorthorns whose 
descendants have since obtained such a world-wide reputation ; but as one 
well-known breeder died oft' after another, these herds were dispersed, and now 
not a breeder remains where there were ten before. 
The cause of this change may, I think, be found in the fact that compara- 
tively few farmers at the present day care about breeding the stock for their 
farms, and thus the best land is all used for fattening ; the inducements to 
feed cattle, owing to the high price of beef ; the ready means of obtaining a 
supply of cattle for feeding ; and the comparatively small risk of loss from 
disease, as compared with tliat from breeding. 
Nearly the whole of this district is grazed by Irish cattle, in which a 
wonderful imi)rovement has taken place during the last twenty years, through 
the introduction of Shorthorns into Ireland from tlic very district which is 
now taking back immense supplies of Iiish-brcd cattle for the purpose of 
feeding. 
