Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 39 
it would be more profitable for him to breed, and to rear tliem by band, 
feeding in loose boxes. This, however, entails an amount of trouble and 
inconvenience which few care to attempt. The same rule will, in a rrreat 
measure, apply to cattle and sheep feeding. On a farm purely tillage, with a 
short supply of grass land, it is more profitable to purchase stock for fattening 
on roots and artificial foods, than to rear and feed fat a much smaller number. 
Again, on a grass farm of good fattening quality, it is more to the advantage 
of the farmer to purchase store stock of age, and in forward condition, so that 
in a few months he can have them finished for the fat market, thus bringing 
in a quick return and fair profit. 
I know one or two gentlemen who formerly bred horses on a very large 
scale, who have now, to a great extent, given it up, partly because it did 
not pay a high interest, but more on account of the constant annoyance and 
disappointment connected with the management. The agricultnral horses I 
find most suited to my farm, and I should say best adapted for the west of 
Ireland generally, are active, clean-legged animals. My own are chiefly crosses 
between the Clydesdale and Suffolk Punch. The breed of cattle I like best 
is that which approaches nearest to the pure-bred Shorthorn, and the sheep 
almost the pure Border Leicester, though a little of the Irish or Koscommon 
blood, to give a little more bone and a hardier constitution, is an advantage. 
The course I adopt on my own farm (and which I observe is pretty much 
the sj'stem followed by Mr. Simson on his very extensive farms in county 
Mayo) will bear out what I have thus very hurriedly stated. 
As a general rule, I breed and rear a good many horses, selling the saddle- 
horses when trained at four or five years old ; the draught horses after they 
have been trained and worked on the farm for a time. I breed and rear a 
number of cattle, and finish them for the fat market at two and three years 
old. 
I breed, rear, and feed off fat all my own sheep. I rarely buy a sheep 
(rams excepted), and rarely sell a sheep, except to the butcher. My experience 
in the west of Ireland has been, that the mixed system of farm husbandly, 
breeding, rearing, and fattening of cattle and sheep, has been the most certain 
to produce a profitable result. The general practice of this part of the couutr\-, 
however, is very different ; the large farmers, or graziers as they are com- 
monly called, almost invariably confine themselves to the grass alone, saving 
some for hay, barely sufficient to give their stock (which are entirely outlying 
in winter) a little in the months of spring, or during very severe snowy 
weather. It must be admitted that stock fed in this way sometimes return 
very great profit ; but at times little or nothing for their grazing. 
I consider my sheep-stock too highly bred to stand the hardship to which 
most flocks are exposed ; in fact, it is my opinion that without hand-feeding 
and attention they would not suit the damp climate of the west. I feed nij'- 
sheep off fat at one year old. As a rule, the sheep of the country are fed in 
Connaught till they are two and a half years old, when they are sold to men 
having fine fattening land, or to tillage farmers for turnip feeding. 
Allan K. Algie. 
24. Aylesbt, Grimsby, Lincolnshire. 
Farmers could not generally breed more stock ; in individual cases it might 
be so. 
On farms where the horses work hard and live high, breeding is very un- 
certain. On other farms, where mares are worked more lightly, and are not 
kept so high, and can be spared for a few months altogether when the spring 
seeding is finished, breeding is profitable. 
