'66 
Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
55. Edinburgh. 
Nothing pays worse thau overstocking, so it is doubtful if, as a fule, more 
stock could be profitably bred. 
Where the whole of the land is under tillage, I think one brood-mare to, say, 
each 300 acres, enough. Breeding is most profitable where there are a number 
of small fields in permanent pasture. Every farmer who holds twenty acres 
or upwards might breed horses. 
This also holds good as to cattle, I think. I approve of the division of labour, 
even in stock-breeding. On a rich arable farm the farm-ofEces should be con- 
structed with a special view to the fattening of as large a number of cattle as 
is possible. 
The buying of lean sheep to fatten and the breeding of sheep may, I think, 
be practised with success on the same arable farm. On clay soils sheep should 
not be much kept ; still I think the breeding of sheep should only be practised 
on rich corn land, when the lambs can all be sold off fat, as lambs, and the 
ewes sold off fat also in the autumn. For the breeding of sheep that are to live 
till they are wethers and ewes, pasture lands and hills are the fittest places. 
One large farmer in Yorkshire told me he devoted nearly his whole large 
farm of 2000 acres to the rearing of carriage-horses fit for the London market. 
One dealer bought the whole " crop," so to speak, at, I think, lOOZ. each, at 
four-years-old, without seeing them. In spite of the enormous rise in the 
value of horses, the inducement to breed is scarcely so great, relatively, as it was. 
The Shetland Islands in this respect, as in many others, form a sort of miniature 
picture of Great Britain. Formerly their great product was ponies. These 
require less keeping than cattle, and run out all the winter. The former ijrice 
was 31. ; now it is 101. to 201. The longer period of gestation, the uncertainty 
and the risk, turn the scale in favour of improved sheep and cattle. A mare 
is not nearly so sure of having a foal as a cow or a ewe is of having a calf or a 
lamb. 
In my experience there is very little average profit on feeding cattle. They 
are necessary evils to make manure. This is becoming more and more the case 
since imported diseases have become so common ; I therefore think sheep more 
profitable in Scotland than cattle to feed. 
I think for all parts of Great Britain and Ireland the two best breeds of 
horses for the plough are the Clydesdale first, and the Suflblk Punch second. 
For shallow steep-hill land I would like a dash of blood in the breed. 
As to cattle I believe the Shorthorn and the Aberdeenshire are far the best, 
and the two make a splendid cross. 
As to sheep it is quite different ; no two breeds are fitted for the whole 
United Kingdom. I found lately (three years ago), on investigation, that the 
Black-faced was returning into favour in moor-lands. I am not quite sure of 
the Cotswold, after having bred hundreds of them ; I think the Scotch or Border 
Leicesters better even for the Cotswold country. 
R. Scot-Skirving. 
56. Naeraghmore, Atht, Ireland. 
I think farmers could breed more stock with profit. 
Breeding horses for the farm is, in mj' opinion, the more preferable plan to 
purchasing them, for two reasons — first, it is, at present prices, the more profit- 
able ; and in tlic second jilace, horses bred on the fiirm are, as a rule, more 
healthy than tliose purcliased. "Where, however, the farm is entirely a 
tillage one and the soil heavy, farm-liorses cannot be cither conveniently 
