392 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
tnrage. That is, however, reducing the sheep to “short commons.” 
The larger and coarser-wooled sheep of double weight will consume 
more food; and will, perhaps, yield less revenue. A farm wholly 
devoted to sheep-culture would probably be richer than its owner. 
There is no such a thing as too much gravy on our parsnips. Cows 
averaging one thousand pounds each, for decent subsistence, with¬ 
out being fed so generously as a good dairyman will feed, require 
thirty pounds of grain or hay, or its equivalent, per day; and this 
will be nearly five and a half tons per annum, which, at five dollars 
per ton, amounts $27.50. 
If oil-cake, corn-meal, potatoes, turnips, sugar-beets, sweet-corn, 
or other substitutes or auxiliaries to grass-food are supplied, all the 
better for land, and cattle will be the variety; but the chief reliance 
must be grass, which forms the basis of our calculations of expen¬ 
ses in supporting stock. The capacity of the land being thus un¬ 
der fair and moderate treatment, adequate to the support of five to 
ten sheep per acre, or one cow to less than three acres, it is a very 
safe apportionment of stock to land to make a farm of one hun¬ 
dred and sixty acres, three-fourths of which, should be devoted to 
grass, carry a dairy of forty cows; which at the standard named of 
six hundred pounds of cheese, or three hundred pounds of butter 
per season, for each cow, would yield, at the rate of twelve and a 
half cents per pound for cheese, $72.50 per cow, being a total of 
$2,900; or at the eastern price of fifteen cents, it will be the same 
as thirty cents for butter, $90 per cow, being a total of $3,600. 
Between the cost of maintaining such a dairy ($1,100) and these 
aggregate results, there is a wide margin of $2,500, which will de¬ 
fray the expenses of labor, interest, extra feed, repairs of buildings 
and fences, and leave the farmer in possession of pork, beef, veah 
breadstuffs, vegetables, etc., for family use, besides the improve¬ 
ment of soil, and increase of its value by augmenting its produc¬ 
tiveness, The products of his farm are in such compact shape as 
to bear transportation to domestic or foreign markets; are not sub¬ 
ject to serious fluctuations; are in growing demand; are readily 
convertible into cash; and leave the farm and farmer in better 
condition at the end than they were in at the beginning of’the- 
year. 
