intelligent farmers, are diffusing wider and
wider, each year, more scientific and thorough notions upon this subject
of breeding, among our agricultural citizens. An admirable and carefully
written article upon 'Select Breeds of Cattle and their Adaptation to
the United States,' appeared in the United States Patent Office Report
for 1861, to which we would call our readers' attention. It should be
studied by every person interested in the economical prosperity of our
country. It conveys, in a simple and perspicuous style, the results of
the various experiments in breeding, in both England and America, which
latterly have become so judicious and accurate as to be now almost based
upon principle. Hereafter there will be no apology, but that of
stupidity and ignorance, for the farmers who neglect the most obvious
rules of success in their occupation. The idea, now become well known,
must become a fact with them, and they must raise no more poor horses or
cattle or sheep, because it costs no more to raise good ones, which are
much more profitable either for the dairy, for service, or for meat.

'Animals are to be looked upon as machines for converting herbage into
money,' says Daniel Webster. 'The great fact to be considered is, how
can we manage our farms so as to produce the largest crops, and still
keep up the condition of our land, and, if possible, place it in course
of gradual improvement? The success must depend in a great degree upon
the animals raised and supported on the farm.'

It is auspicious for our country that the interest in sheep raising is
becoming wider and deeper. 'The value of wool imported into the United
States, in 1861 was nearly five millions of dollars. The value of
imported manufactured woollen goods was more than twenty-eight millions
of dollars, less by nearly ten millions of dollars than the importations
of 1860. Taking the last three years as a basis of calculation, we have
had an annual importation of from thirty-five to forty-five millions of
pounds of manufactured and unmanufactured wool, being the product of
thirteen millions of sheep.' The annual increase of population in the
United States requires the wool from more than three million sheep.
There is an annual deficiency of wool of from forty to fifty millions of
pounds, so there need be no fear of glutting the market by our own
production. The investigation might be extended much further. It remains
for the farmers and legislators to