Breeding, Rearing, and Feeding Horses, Cattle, and Sheep. 55 
40. Halkerston, Gorebridge, Edinburgh. 
In many places, I tliiuk, where there is a jiart hill or rough ground, stock 
can he reared with advantage, and fed on the improved part of the farm. 
Horses pay well where you have rough ground, and I think every farmer iu 
this locality at least should breed horses for the farm. As a rule, they prove 
more suitable than those brought from a different district. On many arable 
farms, however, where the soil is retentive at some seasons of the year, the 
ground gets very hard, and proves injurious to the feet of young colts. 
I think there are too few cattle bred. On farms where the five-course 
rotation is the rule cattle pay to breed and feed. Hay has been high in 
price, and many farmers have been going in for it, and so have fewer cattle 
and sheep. la the lower districts the rotation prevents breeding of sheep to a 
great extent. There is not grass till after the hay is cut, so a breeding-stock 
cannot be kept iu big numbers. Young cattle and sheep do well on first and 
second years' grass not too heavily stocked with sheep. Agricultural horses 
do well where the rent per acre is less than in the Lothians. 
I know several who now keep sheep in preference to cattle. The high price 
of labour is one inducement. In place of barley or oats after turnips they 
sow rape and grass-seeds, and put sheep on it about July. On this fare 
sheep feed very fast. 
In this locality, where the ground is hill}', heavy Clydesdale horses are not- 
suitable. We prefer clean-boned active horses. Cattle cannot be too well 
bred. Shorthorns, if properly treated, grow and feed at the same time ; come 
•early to maturity and great weight. Half-bred ewes, that is cross from Leicester 
rams and Cheviot ewes, again crossed by Leicesters, make a good sheep, and 
when well fed yield a heavy clip of wool. 
James Cukeie. 
4.1, EsKER TiMAHOE, Queen's Countt, Ieeland. 
If British farmers had proper security for their improvements in the soil, 
they could, by high farming, make the country, especially Ireland, produce 
•double the quantity of stock it now does. 
Except on very heavy clays or hill farms, where the work is too hard for 
mares in-foal, it is most profitable for farmers to breed their own supply of 
horses. When the farmer has good fattening land it is more profitable to buy 
store-cattle, as men who have cheap light laud can rear them cheaper than the 
feeding farmer can, who has to pay a high rent. 
On some of the light tillage land, that will not grow old grass, the buying 
•of sheep reared on hill lands, and fed off on after-grass and tururps pays best, 
when such can be got. With regard to Ireland, as at present farmed, the 
good tillage farmer can buy his sheep cheaper than he can rear them. The 
half of Ireland that is under grass should be under crops of turnips and corn. 
If every man were cropping and farming as he should, rearing would have to 
be resorted to. Two-thirds of the farmers, however, are living an easy, idle, 
life, keeping good tillage land in bad grass, making a living themselves, but 
<loing no good for the country or their countrymen ; banishing the labouring 
men, and sending the money of the country begging for foreign speculation — 
under these circumstances, buying lean sheep pays the good tillage farmer 
the best. 
The rearing of agricultural horses always pays the Irish tillage farmer better 
than cattle or sheep, as he can make them work for their food when two-and- 
a-half years old, but he should only breed according to the number of mares 
he can keep working. It never 2)ays the farmer to breed hunters, as they will 
