Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 45 
United Kingdom, with a tendency rather to decrease, and certainly not to 
1)6 further developed under existing conditions. I speak especially of good 
class cattle rather than the mountain breeds. 
Whilst cattle are allotted the cream of the pastures for the sake of 
beef and butter, sheep are put, as a general rule, upon secondary and inferior 
soils. Of course there are exceptions to this, especially in the western pro- 
vinces, where large tracts well suited to the growth of mutton are devoted 
exclusively to sheep-farming. These are peculiar soils in the hands of large 
holders, who for a lengthened period have adopted this class of (to them most 
profitable) farming. They have sound sheep pastures, and their aim is to 
produce weighty sheep for the market. 
Those who have given up tillage husbandry in other parts of Ireland, and 
whose lands are not of a quality to sustain cattle, have been obliged to turn to 
sheep-farming, in many instances with soils utterly unsuitable for permanent 
pasture. They tried the higher classes of sheep, Leicester and Border-Leicester, 
but they degenerated in large quantities during our wet winters ; and when 
these holders reverted to hardier mountain breeds, they fonnd them continue 
mere stores until three or four years old, and even then they were unable to 
turn them into mutton for waut of the " finishing " pastures of the western 
men, and they had no turnips to substitute. Such experience as this has tended 
to check the increase of sheep in Ireland, which otherwise might have ensued 
after the great change into pasturage — especially of lighter lands — that has 
taken place within the last twenty-five years. 
Ou the whole, then, I look upon sheep-farming in Ireland as a limited busi- 
ness, and as not capable of much, if any, further development under existing 
conditions. Our climate is exceedingly adverse to sheep, especially of the 
higher class, and to " quick return," unless they are nursed with artificial 
food in winter. 
Extensive arterial drainage by Government, combined with thorough drain- 
age by particular owners, would develop sheep- farming, and improve Ijoth 
the arable and waste lands of the country to an enormous extent, and com- 
pensate in some measure for sheep-folding or artificial feeding — decreasing 
propoi tionably with the disuse of tillage. Scientific husbandry has diminished 
apace with our agricultural population, and this bodes, so far, permanent cessa- 
tion of tillage : because, with our undulating surface and rugged soil, machinery 
is not so adaptable as upon the friable plains of the sister isle. 
MULHALLEN MaKUM. 
28. Alttee, Foeres, N.B. 
Generally speaking, I think that the number of horses, cattle, and sheep- 
bred by the British farmer could be profitably increased, but not to such an 
extent as would materially affect the supply. 
Accommodation, in the way of suitable enclosures for grazing young stock, 
housing, &c., is essential for the profitable and satisfactory management of 
a breeding-stud. The almost total want of these in the counties where my 
experience has been gathered has rendered purchasing — as against breeding 
— the required horses almost imperative. Before the last few years the higli 
price of beef rendered cattle rearing and feeding much more remunerative than 
horse breeding. I^Tow that good horses have reached such high prices, the 
attention of the farmer will be more turned to horse breeding, and the money- 
value of first-class animals at, say, three years old, or when fit for work, will 
more affect the question at issue — viz., purchasing as against breeding — than 
" locality," " nature of soil," " climate," &c. 
Eotation of cropping followed must regulate the question of breeding as 
