' Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 25 
Sheep and dairy-cows do not succeed well on the same pasture ; hence the 
number of sheep bred and fed in the county is small. The Shropshire is now 
the leading breed. They produce a fair quantity of wool, and the carcase is 
much esteemed by the butcher. They are hardy and prolific, and attain good 
weights at an early age. 
Gilbert Muekay. 
13. KlLLERBY, CaTTEEICK. 
As a ntle, I think most profit is made in regular farming by breeding the 
stock, i.e., cattle, sheep and horses requisite to consunie the produce which 
the farm grows ; and I think it would be a benefit to farmers in general to 
breed more stock. 
* i Horses cannot very well be bred on arable farms, or on farms where the 
land is of very good quality and will fatten cattle and sheep, as the latter, 
under such circumstances, pay better. The farms best adapted for breeding 
horses are those on which there is a large portion of low-lying grass land of 
poor quality, which is not good enough for feeding cattle, and which is too 
marshy for sheep. On this kind of land horses do remarkably well in sum- 
mer — when other stock will not thrive — and will pay well, provided the dams 
and sires are well and judiciously selected. The great difficulty in the present 
day is to obtain a good sire to put mares to. It is the breeding from unsound 
sires which has caused many farmers to be disappointed in breeding horses, 
and so give it up. 
A law should be made prohibiting any horse afi"ected with hereditary 
diseases (such as roaring, &c.) from serving mares ; and I would require each 
stallion to be examined by a veterinary surgeon appointed by Government, 
and to be certified by him as sound, before he should be allowed to serve a 
mare. 
The farms on which cattle-breeding is more profitable than purchasing, are 
those which have grass land not sufficiently good for fattening cattle. There 
are many farms of this class of land in this district, where, fifteen or twenty 
years ago, the tenants bred and reared the whole of the cattle which they kept 
on their farms. The cattle were generally grazed until they were three years old, 
and then fed on turnips, and sold fat ; and it was no uncommon thing to see 
bullocks weighing 70 to 80 stones each (14 lbs. to the stone) going to market 
off these farms ; but of late years the custom has very much changed. This 
change has, in my opinion, been very much brought about by the severe 
losses which many farmers have suffered from the ravages of foot-and-mouth 
disease among their breeding-cows. There is not more than one calf bred now 
where theie were ten at that time. A great proportion of the land is now 
grazed by third-rate Irish cattle, which, in my opinion, do not pay the fanner 
nearly so well as he would get paid by keeping a good lot of dairy-cows, 
making butter, and breeding and rearing his own stock for his farm ; to say 
nothing of the losses which occur from the imix)rtation of diseases — such as 
pleuro and foot-and-mouth disease — on to the farm through purchasing. 
On arable fanns sufficient cattle cannot be bred (profitably) to consume the 
straw and roots ; and when the grass land is of rich feeding quality, it is more 
profitable to buy in cattle of mature age for grazing purposes, than to rear 
young animals. 
There are some farms of light land (turnip and barley soils) which pay 
better in tillage than in grass, and which require the turnipts to be consumed ou 
the land by sheep ; so a larger number of sheep are required during the winter 
months for this purpose than the farm can carry during the summer ; and it 
is, under these circumstances, more profitable to buy sheep than to breed them. 
