CATTLE.

"Has any improvement been made in the breeds of cattle in your county within the past five years?

"What breeds are most esteemed in your county?

"Are there any "Durhams" or "Short-horns" in your county?

Devons
Ayrshires

"Which of the breeds, or which crosses, are considered the most profitable for beef?

"Which for work oxen?

"Which for milch ?

"Have any experiments been made with cooked or boiled or steamed food for cattle; and with what success?

"Have any experiments been made with ground or unground food?

"Which system of feeding is preferred-that of feeding whole grains, or ground food, or boiled food?

"What is the probable cost of rearing a three year old ox or cow? "To what diseases are cattle most subject?"

While great improvement has been made in the horses of Ohio within a few years, the improvement in cattle has also been marked by very rapid strides. From our climate, our location, with reference to market, and the ease with which corn, the great producer of beef, is raised, together with excellent pasturage and good water, the State may vie with any of its neighbors in the profitable production of cattle, both for beef, for work and milk.

BREEDS. Of the five principal breeds of cattle, Short-horn, Devon, Ayrshires, Herefords and Alderneys, we have in great numbers the Short-horn and grades. There is not a county or township in Ohio but more or less of their cross is found. In many parts of the State fine herds of thoroughbreds are kept, which are hardly excelled in England. Devons are not so extensively dispersed, though there are some excellent herds of them, and their blood can be traced in much of the stock in the country. There are probably better Devons in the State now than formerly, though their numbers have not increased to so great an extent as the Short-horns. Of Ayrshires, Herefords and Alderneys, though there are a few of each, yet so few that as yet we derive little benefit from them. The native stock also largely predominates in many parts of the State, mixed more or less with both Short-horn and Devon blood.

BREEDS MOST ESTEEMED FOR BEEF.-For beef the Short-horn and its grade is considered most valuable. It may be considered an unsettled question whether a thoroughbred or a grade is most profitable, as the number of the former, which go into the hands of the butcher, is small, and no system of experiments has been made to determine the comparative value of the two. There is no doubt,

for beef, however, that the thoroughbred and its grade possesses characteristics. superior to the Devon. Its natural tendency is to fatten; and, possessing a large frame and a very vigorous digestive apparatus, and little activity, it is well adapted to convert large quantities of food into meat.

BEST BREEDS FOR MILK.-This is a question upon which farmers are divided. About an equal number favor the Short-horn and native, a few favor the Devon, while large numbers think a cross, between the Short-horn and Devon, or native, make the best milkers. It is a settled fact that some of the thoroughbred Shorthorns are the best milkers in the world. Where all the powers of their system tend to the production of milk, this is the case. It is equally true that some of them are worthless as milkers, the tendency being to produce fat. In some families the tendency to produce milk appears to have been bred out. Those who consider native stock best for dairy purposes do not always count the number of failures in this breed as milkers. If one proves a good milker note is always made of it; if not she usually shows it before she is two years old, and is sold for beef. It is undeniable that most of our good dairy cows are grades with more or less Short-horn blood, mixed with both Devon and native; and, where this is the case, it is not easy to determine whether the quality originated in the cross or was inherited from one or the other strain. If we would breed especially for milk, always choosing our best cows and crossing them on thoroughbred Short-horn bulls, known to have decended from good milking families, we might perpetuate this quality; and it is doubtful if as good cows, for the dairy, can be obtained in other way. Nor would beef producing qualities be in the least injured by this course, as a good milker is much more likely to breed and to fatten well than a poor one. It is easy to breed from or fatten a good milker, but it is not easy to change an animal that shows great disposition to fatten into either one or the other.

any

BEST BREEDS FOR WORK.-While the Short-horn and his grades is considered best for beef and milk, the Devon ranks highest for work. Though of less size, the activity of his temperment, and the development of his muscle, makes the Devon ox one of great sprightliness and power. The Short horn makes a very poor working animal. His tendency to eat largely and produce fat in proportion to what he eats makes him lazy. A few would cross the Devon with the grade of Short-horn to increase the size of the ox; but what is gained in this way is lost by the sluggish disposition which it produces. Oxen are not used very much in Ohio for work. All the older counties to a great extent have used the horse almost exclusively for years. Where only one team is needed on the farm, so various are the uses to which horses can be put, they are unquestionably the best. Where more than one team is needed, the Devon ox, from his great hardihood, activity, ease with which he is kept, cheapness with which he can be rigged, and profit with which he can be fattened and sold at any time, makes him more valuable to the farmer than he is usually considered.

FEEDING CATTLE.-In the early settlement of the State, if cattle or horses ate grain, it was generally unground and raw. Now there is not a county in Ohio,

and hardly a township, in which farmers do not consider it a great gain to grind all the grain fed to their stock. It needs ro accurate system of experiments to satisfy the farmer that it is very wasteful to feed whole grain. Just how much is saved by grinding is not known, and it would be difficult to decide, as some animals musticate finer, have greater powers of digestion, and are able to manage whole grain better than others. Where a horse or an ox works it is calculated by many that one pound of oats or corn, finely ground, is worth a pound and a half unground-but of course this may differ somewhat from the truth. In Warren, Hancock, Ashtabula, Franklin, Ashland, Richland, Morrow, and a few other counties, we are informed that to a small extent cooking food for stock has been tested, and in every instance with satisfactory results. What we need now is something definite in regard to cooked food for animals. Reasoning from human experience, there should be a very great saving; but how great, experiments alone can determine. If as much can be saved by cooking as by grinding, farmers would do well to look to the matter carefully.

Farm mills for grinding food are not very extensively used, farmers preferring to send their grain to the grist-mill rather than to own and run a mill of their own. If cooked food was used it would be necessary for farmers to have a steaming apparatus for the purpose, and it is doubtful if, as a majority of farmers conduct their operations, one would be used very extensively. Cutting hay, straw and stalks into very fine pieces before feeding is in common practice for working stock and milch cows, and the straw and stalk-cutter is considered so valuable that most of our best farmers use them. Some experiments have been made in England, in chaffing and cooking hay and straw, with results in favor of the process. It would be an easy matter to chaff hay and mix it with grain and roots reduced to pulp, and there is no doubt but food prepared in this way would be vastly superior to the usual method of feeding it.

COST OF REARING CATTLE.-In a previous part of this article it was claimed that there had been much improvement in our cattle within the past few years. Cattle-breeding, however, has not yet reached anything like perfection, as is shown from what it costs to raise an ox or a cow to the age of three years. In answer to this question, addressed to the President of the Agricultural Societies of Ohio, the usual reply was, "Twenty Dollars." In a few of the counties where improvement had not made much progress, the reply was from "eight to fifteen dollars ;" and in those counties where our best stock is found, it was from thirty to fifty dollars. Assuming twenty dollars as the standard, we can easily see that any ox or cow, raised to the age of three years for this sum, cannot have had all the pains in breeding, and care in keeping, which is necessary to the best development of the animal Assuming that a good calf is worth when dropped. 81, it will cost to feed it with six quarts of milk daily, for four months, $7.20. Pasturage for four months more, at six cents a week, $1. For wintering four months more, it cannot be done on less than half a ton of hay, which is worth $3. Here is $12 20 for the first year. For pasturage eight months of the second year, $2.50; wintering, $4. Do. third year-pasture, $3; wintering, $6.

grain or care. How then do

Here is $27.70 at a low estimate, and making no allowance for The value of the manure, however, might be made to offset this we account for the fact that the general estimate is so low? Only by supposing that cattle are not as well raised as they ought to be!

DISEASES OF CATTLE.-The cattle of Ohio are usually healthy. This is good evidence of the fitness of the climate, soil, water, etc., for breeding them. Occasionally, in some parts of the State, a disease known as "foot ail" has appeared, but its cause has usually been traced to the use of ergotted June grass. Murrain, which was formerly common, still appears in most parts of the State, but is much more rare than in the early settlement of the country. Its cause is doubtless impure water, as it is more frequent where there is much stagnant water, and rarely appears where it is pure and wholesome. Hollow Horn, as it is called by farmers, though less common than a few years ago, occasionally affects cattle in every district. It is usually caused by improper nourishment. Too high feed and breaking down the digestive powers, or starvation, will occasion it. We do not describe the disease or the treatment, as most farmers are already familiar with both. The true remedy for all diseases in animals is prevention. Most of them are caused by some fault in the manner in which they are kept-as too much, too little, or improper food, impure water, and too much exposure in winter, if left to run at large; or, if stabled, by confined air, loaded with effluvia from the animal secretions.

We will now proceed to view cattle from another stand-point. Upon cattle depends very much the perfection of our agriculture. The end to be attained in raising them is not always the same; sometimes it is work, as in countries addicted to the pursuit of agriculture proper, as in the largest part of Europe. We will consider them exclusively as producing "income "—that is, as supplying produce ; consequently, readily saleable, and procuring direct revenue-such as stock and fat cattle, meat, tallow, hides, milk, butter, cheese, etc. For ages these productions were the only object of raising "income" cattle. There are still many districts where the same object is pursued; it being the only means of attaining an income from the land. This happens where soil and climate present great obstacles to cultivation, and admit of pasture only. This is an exception in France hardly to be met with outside the snowy slopes of the Alps and Pyrennees. Every where else the paramont product of cattle-that which causes them to be the foundation of agriculture, an imperative necessity, the sine qua non of progress, profit, and, we may add, of empire and civilization-is MANURE.

Animals being considered as producers of manure, are only machines to change fodder and litter into this material; and this applied to the soil becomes the material for the growth of vegetables. By the union of animal and vegetable. products agriculture creates at the same time objects of sale, "income," and the material for its future production. No other branch of industry shows such a fact. We must admit, however, that while such a combination affords in some respects a superiority to agriculture over other branches, on the other hand it complicates in a great measure agricultural industry. It would be the same if

steamer, which, in order to obtain profit from its freight, were obliged to manufacture the agents of her own propulsion.

For centuries a great error prevailed as to the part the soil acted in production; it was considered an inexhaustible source of production. Land does not cease production immediately for want of manure as an engine stops for want of coal, but produces less and less till labor spent on it ceases to be remunerative. Where such a course is followed not only is the cultivator ruined, but a decrease of population follows. Exhaustion of the soil is the phthisis of nations. The history of the world, and especially of Europe, teems with examples of such ruins. The shores of the Mediterranean Sea were once the seat of ancient civilization, of populous cities and numerous populations, all of which has more or less declined. Political revulsions, bad governments, and the invasion of Islamism, are not the only causes of the decay; because, whilst these do not apply to Sicily, Spain, Provence and Languedoc, another country-Egypt-continued to be rich, populous and fertile in spite of frequent revolutions and a brutal despotism. Egypt was the cause of the exhaustion of other lands, whilst her fate was to remain fertile; the most advanced nation of the old continent, Egypt sent forth colonies on many a district around the Mediterranean Sea, and of course she exported there her arts, her costumes, and her agriculture, which was then deemed so perfect; but that agriculture kept animals only for work; the production of manure was not even thought of; the periodical floods of the Nile afforded inexhaustible elements of fertilization; therefore, the Egyptian system of agriculture consisted in taking away from the soil as much as possible, without restoring anything.

This practice followed by Egyptian colonies brought decay and ruin to countries once fertile and prosperous, and which constituted the granaries of Rome. Lands which yielded 100 and 200 (?) bushels of wheat to one of seed now with better implements yield 5, or 4, and even as low as 3! Behold the secret of this decline from civilization and wealth to ruin and annihilation; it stands between 100 bushels and 4 bushels of wheat produced from one of seed.

Historians refuse to seek for the cause of the fall of empires in a heap of manure, but nevertheless the cause is there. The history of a nation is to be read from the aspect of her soil as well as from her written documents. See Provence for instance. The Phocean colony, following the Egyptian system of agriculture without cattle and manure, cultivated, then exbausted plain and valley; when urged by want, they cleared the mountain forests; all felt the ax, plow and pick, but nature cruelly punished this infraction of her laws; with the timber genial rains disappeared; heavy floods carried to the valleys first vegetable earth, then sand, gravel and stones, so that the country presents the desolating spectacle of denuded dry rocky mountains, and valleys covered with a deep layer of sand and pebbles.

Provence has no springs, no rivulets; there are rivers, which are dry during nine months of the year, when they suddenly become awful torrents, carrying waste and desolution on their overflown shores. Behold the consequences of cub tivating without manure!