436 
Wisco^^siJ^ STATE Agricultural society. 
crying necessity of the age is more and better meat. The better 
our education, the more skillful and intelligent our population; the 
harder we work with our brains, the more animal food we seem to 
require. Improved animals, like the Short-horns, for instance re¬ 
quire richer food than Texan cattle, and bright, active, energetic 
men, as a rule, require, and will have, more nutritious and more 
easily digestible food than the slow, plodding farm laborer of the 
past. In all civilized countries, the demand for animal food is in- 
creasihg much more rapidly than the supply. England is searching 
the world over for meat. And, what is still more strange, withall 
our immense area of cultivated land. New England, New York and 
Pennsylvania send thousands of miles for beef cattle. This is very 
well, but we shall soon learn that we must look to improved agri¬ 
culture, rather than to cheap land and semi-vvild animals, for a 
steady supply of good meat. The farmers of New York, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 
need have no fears that Texan cattle will crowd out Short-horns and 
their grades from our markets. We shall produce better meat and 
we shall get better prices for it. Poor meat is the dearest of all 
food. Many of our farmers think they cannot afford to produce 
beef and mutton. And this is probably true, unless they produce 
beef and mutton of better than average quality. There is an aston¬ 
ishing amount of poor meat raised and sold even in the better 
farmed portions of the country. We must raise good beef and 
good mutton. To do this with profit we must furnish richer tood, 
and this will afford richer manure. And taking meat and manure 
into account we can make a profit. 
A few years ago the wool from Leicester, Cotswold and other 
long-wooled English sheep sold for from 20 to 30 percent, less than 
Merino wool. Now all this is changed. Desirable combing wool 
brings from 20 to 30 per cent, more than Merino. This is a great 
change. Congress was at one time urged to take off the duty on 
combing wool because it was said the farmers of the United States 
could not produce this kind of wool. It could be grown in Canada 
but not here. On the west side of the Suspension Bridge, over the 
Niagara river, combing wool could be produced of excellent quali¬ 
ty, but not on the east side. And while the Canadian farmers on 
the east side of the Detroit river could produce the best of comb¬ 
ing wool, the farmers of Michigan on the west side of the river 
