State Convention—Grass is King. 385 
bluffs of what was then the town of Neshonoc, as night overtook 
me, while running out some land boundaries eighteen years ago, it 
was my good fortune to make the acquaintance of a thorough-go¬ 
ing Scotchman, who brought to this country, besides an excellent 
Scotch wife, a practical knowledge and a high regard for that hon¬ 
est and judicious system of agriculture which one sees in the better 
portions of Scotland, such as Perthshire and Sterlingshire, where 
the country resembles the rougher districts of Wisconsin. Finding 
himself cramped, this Scotch farmer moved to larger fields, which 
he cultivates to the extent of about one thousand acres, cornering 
in the two towns of Farmington and Holland, on which he has a 
first-class “whole-milk” cheese factory, in care of a daughter who 
is worth her weight in gold, and a first-class flouring and grist 
mill, with all the modern appliances for making patent flour, etc 
This larmer, dairyman, and miller, named James Barclay, assured 
me last week, that an acre of grass, yields greater profit than an 
acre of wheat, without reference to the factory or mill profits; and 
the grass lands are growing stronger, while the wheat fields re¬ 
quired great attention to prevent them from becoming weaker. 
Mr. Barclay estimates the cost of carrying a cow through the 
winter at fifteen dollars, and sets apart an acre and a half of grass 
for sustaining each cow during the grazing season, which he figures 
at fifteen dollars more, allowing ten dollars per acre as a liberal 
price for his grass. He gets an average income or revenue from 
each cow equivalent to four hundred pounds of cheese, which, at 
the moderate price of ten cents, is forty dollars. Computed at the 
eastern price of fifteen cents for cheese, the net return would be 
sixty dollars. His estimates of cost of wheat-culture do not vary 
much from these already specified. His testimony is decidedly in 
favor of grass. These results are given as a fair test under the good 
old-fashioned open-air grazing system of stock-feeuing; and, al¬ 
though they present a favorable view of grass as compared with 
grain, we shall see that the first-class dairymen and stock-raisers 
of New England and New York begin where the best class of 
western farmers culminate or leave off; and that they treat cows 
and sheep as machinery for converting crops into milk and wool; 
and that instead of trying to see how cheaply stock can be carried 
through the year, they strive to see how much food can be pushed 
into and through their cows. The more, the better. 
25-a 
