State Contention—Grass is King. 
393 
STOCK-RAISING. 
As to raising of cattle for beef, while such vast grazing fields are 
available in the southwest, the western farmer should make that 
branch of his business secondary to the dairy; while sheep should 
be treated as auxiliary to the dairy, by the same process that com¬ 
pels a farmer to keep both a pitch-fork and a table-fork; or on the 
same principle that his wife requires both sheers and scissors; or 
that husband and wife have use for both a scoop-shovel and tea-spoon. 
The sheep trim, dress, and nourish all portions of the farm; while 
the larger and more valuable machine commonly called a cow, con¬ 
verts the bulk of the staple crop into milk, and the farmer manu¬ 
factures it into cheese and butter, or lets the factory do it for him. 
HORSES. 
In regard to horse-raising, except of choice and fine-blooded or 
racing-stock which requires much intercourse and familiarity with 
sporting-men and vicious jockeys, whose opinions are nothing un¬ 
less backed up b} r a wager, there are so few chances of drawing 
prizes, after five, six, or seven years of expensive training of ani¬ 
mals, that promised, when young, to be “Dexters” and “Gold¬ 
smith Maids,” the profits are uncertain and capricious, depending 
more on representations than merits. 
In order to show what can be accomplished by breeding in any 
particular direction and for a specific purpose, it is only necessary 
to refer to the fact that there are more trotting-horses to-day that 
have a record inside of the twenties than ihere were twenty years 
ago inside of the forties; and from the present racing-stock there 
will be produced horses that will get down to two minutes. 
The most successful horse-breeder I ever knew was a New Hamp¬ 
shire farmer, whose wife made excellent butter, while her husband 
sold his two year old colts in the pasture after half an hour’s race 
among a dozen noisy boys who tried in vain to catch the old man’s 
gay young “racing-stock,” which he desired to sell at that young- 
age “ because he was too clumsy to break such quick colts.” With 
tails flourishing like plumes over their backs, and with nostrils dis¬ 
tended while snorting defiance to their pursuers, these “ two-year- 
olds” would command ready sale at high prices; but when they 
becarne mature horses and mares, not one in a dozen would be worth 
