•78 
Relative Profits to the Farmer from 
On a farm better adapted for crop than grass, it will pay better to buy 
store cattle than to breed them. 
It is more profitable to buy lean sheep where your pasture is better suited 
for cattle, if you require sheep to feed-off your surplus turnips. 
In my opinion, the breeding of cattle and sheep is more profitable to the 
farmer than that of horses, as there is more consumption for cattle and sheep, 
which are not so liable to come down in price. If farmers were to change 
from cattle and sheep to horses, they would fill the country in half-a-dozen 
years, and, instead of getting 100?. for a good horse, we should only be 
getting 201. 
Where the land is either naturally rich or in high manurial condition, cattle 
will pay best ; and on a light soil not well adapted for white crops, I think 
sheep will pay fully as well ; however, the farmer, in every instance, has 
not his choice, as, for the want of proper house accommodation, he has to keep 
sheep on land that would pay better with cattle. 
In my opinion, the Clydesdale horse for working, the Ayrshire cow for 
milking, the Shorthorn cattle and half-bred sheep and crosses for feeding, 
on the arable land ; and, of course, on moorland, Black-faced sheep are most 
suitable in this district. 
James Lockhart. 
72. MiLMAiN, Wigtownshire. 
Regarding my experience of sheep and cattle, I was forced into the change 
two years since, by my dairy-stock taking pleuro-pneumonia. By order of the 
local authority of this district, my whole dairy-stock was slaughtered, and I 
was obliged to go in for Cheviot ewes. I crossed them with Long-woolled 
rams, and had a very good cross. I fed both ewes and lambs fat with turnips 
and grain through the winter. I consider I got good prices for them, as they 
were well fed ; but on summing up, after having sold out, I find I was a full 
third short of what my dairy had produced for years before. Being afraid 
to go into the dairy for another year, I followed the same course last season, 
and my experience is much the same as above. I have now put on a 
stock of cows and queys, and intend going into my former system of dairy- 
ing, as I find this part of the country is better adapted for dairy cows than 
sheep. 
John Ealston. 
73. Chapel Bank, Perthshihe. 
By all means rear your horses, unless the farm be of clay or heavy soil. You 
know how they arc come, and the high prices we have to pay for good horses 
render breeding almost a necessity. 
In no circumstances, were better accommodation given to farmers in the 
way of comfortable houses for all ages of cattle, would it be better to buy 
than breed. 
Sheep will thrive and pay where cattle can scarcely exist. 
In this locality the breeding and rearing of Clydesdale horses is attended 
with success and profit. If the breeder, with an ordinary useful strong-legged 
mare, free from all hereditary disposition of side-bone, spavin, &c., &c., would 
select a well-bred Clydesdale stallion, he, at present prices, would bo sure to 
breed to profit. 
Some enterprising farmers in this neighbourhood breed Shorthorn cattle to 
fair advantage ; but the time it takes to make one famous as such, connected 
with the outlay for the best blood, &c., altogether runs away with the chance 
