"Why, The Oxen And Cows, When They Are Fat And Ready For Market, Walk Off In Droves To Boston, To Be Killed.

They don't kill them where they are raised, for then they would have to haul away the beef in wagons or sleighs, but make the animals walk to market themselves, and kill them there.

But the farmers don't generally take their own cattle to market. Men go about the country, and call upon the farmers, and buy their cattle, and thus collect great droves. These men are called drovers. In traveling in this part of the country, late in the fall, you would see great droves of cattle and sheep, passing along the road, all going to Boston, or rather Brighton."

"Where is Brighton?" asked Marco.

"It is a town very near Boston, where the great cattle market is held. The Boston dealers come out to Brighton, and buy the cattle, and have them slaughtered, and the beef packed and sent away all over the world. Thus the farmers turn the grass into beef, and in that shape it can be transported and sold."

"And what else?" asked Marco.

"Why, they raise a great many horses in Vermont," replied Forester. "These horses live upon grass, eating it as it grows in the pastures and on the mountains, in the summer, and being fed upon hay in the barn in the winter. These horses, when they are four or five years old, are sent away to market to be sold.

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