strong desire to have this new trade continued and extended, freely offering their best efforts to encourage it, as they believed it would result advantageously to all concerned, and promising, if successful, to send north for a better breed of cattle, as they said, and with truth, that they could raise cattle and deliver them in Illinois with satisfactory profits to themselves, for less, by one-half, than they could be raised in that State. In anticipation of this trade being continued the following season, quite a large number of cattle were bought up from points further south, and, as was expected, the trade opened lively; but an unforeseen difficulty exploded the whole business within the next two years. It was found that the southern or Spanish cattle were subject to an epidemic or contagious disease, somewhat resembling the yellow fever in the human race, and so contagious did it prove that all along the track those cattle were driven the farmers lost large numbers of their cattle from that disease, many losing almost their entire stock within a few days. So serious was the loss occasioned by each drove of Texas cattle passing through that the inhabitants of southwestern Missouri held conventions in divers places, and resolved that no more Texas cattle should pass through the country, and, by order of these conventions, armed bands or patrols were appointed whose duty it was to turn back all Texas droves that might attempt to pass, which they did effectually. Thus ended what at one time seemed a promising trade. From the short trial, however, it became evident that, from the inferiority of the Texas stock as beef cattle, the trade would not have resulted as satisfactorily as was anticipated; the cattle were very light weighers for their size of frame, with but little room for improvement, and so wild as to be almost unmanageable. For oxen for the Santa Fe trade, or long drives over flinty roads, their hardness of hoof, their agility and endurance, render them unrivalled; and though they never lose entirely their wild nature, yet, when judiciously trained, they become quite tractable."

CONDITION OF AGRICULTURE.

In the report for 1865 we gave the statistics of horses in Ohio, and in the present report will be found some historical information in relation to horses in the State, in an article from the pen of Mr. Madison Raynolds, of Stark county, page 175, in the Prize Essay by N. S. Townshend, of Lorain county, page 128, and the Prize Essay by John M. Millikin, of Buttler county, page 96.

Cattle have always secured more attention from the farmers of Ohio than horses or mules. In the report for 1865, page 280, an article was contributed on the introduction of improved cattle into Ohio, together with the pedigrees of animals purchased in England in 1834. Then followed an account of the Madison county cattle sales from July, 1859, to June, 1866, presenting a very important record of the money value of cattle during these eight years.

In the present volume, page 142, is given a very interesting article on cattle in Ohio, by Wm. Renick, and I now proceed to state some of the important reasons why cattle should be kept. Some general remarks upon cattle may not be out of place here.

In the present condition of agriculture, it may be safely stated that cattle is the basis of agriculture; and in saying this, we simply announce a fact which has passed into an axiom, and as such is not only incontestible but no attempt has been made to contest it, even by the unlettered German farmer who regards cattle as a " necessary evil.”

Taking this truth as our point of departure, in order to ascertain the causes we must make a complete analysis of the problem throughout its entire extent.

THE OBJECT FOR WHICH CATTLE ARE KEPT.

The principal object for which different persons breed or keep cattle is not always the same.

Cattle are kept or bred for the labor which they perform. This fact is every where accepted, but it predominates more than elsewhere in those countries where a rational system of agriculture is pursued, as at present in the greater portion of Europe.

In

In the second place cattle are kept as a source of direct revenue. stances of this kind are more numerous than in any other point of view, and at the same time is the most important. The revenue, or cattle reared

for sale, are so called from the fact that they furnish the necessary products for consumption, and consequently command a sale more or less ready and advantageous, and from that time are a source of direct revenue. The products are the live animals themselves-young cattle, fat cattle, and which furnish beef, hide and tallow, milk, butter, cheese, &c.

For a long time these products were the principal object-if not in fact an only one-in rearing or keeping revenue cattle, and there are yet localities where this view prevails, where cattle are the only means, or rather the best medium, of obtaining a compensatory revenue, or in fact, any revenue at all from the soil. This is the case in countries where soil and climate, the one or the other, or both, present great difficulties in cultivating, and which produce scarcely any herbage.

But at the present time almost every where the essential product- that product, the importance of which towers high above all others- that which makes cattle an absolute necessity in cultivation, and renders its development a sine qua non of progress an of beneficences, which is the cause of the immense and constant influence of the animal production upon the production of vegetables, is MANURE.

CATTLE REGARDED FROM THE "MANURE" POINT OF VIEW.

Regarded from the point of view of the production of manure, cattle are simply machines which convert forage and litter into manure. And this product thus manufactured-for we use an accepted expression only— becomes properly applied to the soil, the primary material for the production of vegetation.

We will direct the reader's attention for a moment to this strange and at the same time admirable combination. In consequence of the intimate union of the vegetable and animal production, agriculture creates at the same time crops for the market, and the primary material from which to obtain its own productions.

This fact does not present itself in any other branch of human industry. Everywhere we see the raw material obtained from sources outside of and entirely disconnected with the manufactory in which labor is expended upon it. It may be well at the same time to acknowledge that if this combination, under certain relations, gives an incontestable superiority to agriculture-if it renders the agriculturist absolute master of his affairs-it, in return, very singularly complicates the whole of rural industry. One may judge of these difficulties in a case not at all connected with agriculture, but which, at the same time, presents some analagous points-we refer to a long voyage on the ocean in a steamship, which is obliged to convey passengers, merchandise, and fuel in sufficient quantity at the same time. On the one hand, in order to make the trip as profitable as possible, it is desirable to devote the greater portion of the space for

stowage of merchandise; but, on the other hand, room enough must be obtained for the stowage of fuel-not only just enough to make the voyage in the usual average time, but enough to provide against all contingencies of delays and accidents. Now, in this case, the tendency is so strong to guard against a short supply of fuel that in a majority of instances the opposite extreme has been attained.

In agriculture, the reverse has been the case. For a great period of time persons bave mistaken, the part performed by the earth or soil. During this long period the soil has been regarded in no other light than as an inexhaustible source of agricultural products. And it is a fact that the soil machine cannot be suddenly arrested and brought to a dead stand still for want of manure, as the steam engine on board the ship can be for want of fuel. But when manure is withheld in agriculture the soil produces less year after year until the crop yields less than the expense incu.red in producing it, and at last it becomes impossible to calculate upon any product at all. That the system of cultivating the soil without manuring is, nevertheless, continued, and that the soil is year by year becoming exhausted, and the cultivator as gradually impoverished, and that this evil spreads over a whole country, then depopulates it, and a general decadence follows is incontestably true. The exhaustion of the soil, permit us to repeat, is the phithisis of nature.

We need not regard this as a speculative or hypothetical instance, nor flatter ourselves that this picture has never been realized. The history of agriculture in the world in general, and in Europe in particular, is filled with instances of it; and if historians were a little more initiated than they generally are in questions of material interests, and above all in questions relating to this great and grand industry, which produces alimentive returns-that is to say crops or materials of prime necessityexercises such a constant and lively influence upon the destiny of nations, they could not have failed to find, in facts of this kind, the causes of events which, up to the present time, are not, historically, satisfactorily explained.

The countries on the Mediterranean shores present striking examples. These countries, filled with the civilization of antiquity, and formerly possessing a very dense population and opulent cities, are all more or less shorn of their ancient splendor. If the political overthrows, it the miserable governments, if the invasions and introduction of Islamism, were the only and true causes, how are we to explain the general fact? How explain with regard to Sicily, Spain, Provence and the lower Languedoc? How, more than all, shall we explain the unique exception presented by one of these countries, which, in spite of frequent political revolutions, and a brutal despotism, continues to be enriched and peopled, and to be the granery of a part of Europe? We mean Egypt.

It may appear strange, yet very probable, that Egypt owes her escape

to the sterilization of her soil. Egypt, in her capacity as a nation, was the most advanced in that portion of the globe, as Mr. Monnier has so admirably demonstrated-himself a very eminent agriculturist. She colonized a very considerable portion of the Mediterranean countries, introduced her arts there, her customs, and above all her agriculture, and to all appearance, the most perfect of the period.

But the Egyptian system of agriculture did not involve the keeping of cattle other than for the actual labor performed by them. Although limited to a very narrow zone, swarming with inhabitants, she gave no thought to manuring the soil nor to the production of manures. And why did she give the subject no thought? Did she not have the Nile, whose periodic inundations were a regular aud inexhaustible source of fertilizing elements? The agriculture of Egypt, then, consisted simply in obtaining the largest possible crops-in always taking away and never returning anything. This principle she introduced in all her colonies in the several countries of the Mediterranean to which they extended, and which spread into and prevailed throughout all central Europe. To this principle must be attributed the decadence of countries formerly so prosperous, and which were the former graneries of Rome, where the soil yielded 100, 150 and even 200 fold, where to-day, with the best system now practiced, they yield five, four, and even three fold only! From one hundred fold to four! Those are the terms of the enigma, and is the explanation of the slow, but irresistable descendent movement which has reduced the former centres of civilization and wealth to so much lower level.

If Egypt has escaped these movements of decadence-Egypt which, more than all the other Mediterranean countries has been the theatre of wars, of incessant invasions and usurpations, and oppressions of all kinds, owes her preservation entirely to her Nile which annually inundates and fertilizes her soil.

I am willing to admit that it is a difficult matter for the historian who is searching for certain great and grand phases of the humanities, to be directed to a manure pile there to find the solution of the problem. But what is he to do, if he really finds it there? It will form a new chapter for him to be added to the history of great events produced by insigniti. cant causes. The man who is familiar with, and who has seen the actual condition of things, can follow, in a sort of manner, the progress of events with his eyes closed, and without historical documents.

Let us take a country like PROVENCE, in France. The Eyptian system of agriculture-cultivation without cattle, and therefore without manure; this Puociau colony commenced by cultivating and exhausting the soils of the plains and the valleys; then, under the empire of growing want, it removed the forests which covered its mountains; then commenced on