Next in importance to the growth of cereals comes the rearing of sheep and cattle; but this is of consequence to the country itself rather than to Western nations, as the export is comparatively small. The number of cattle bred in the country does not appear to increase materially.[57] There are three varieties of oxen, and one peculiar kind of buffalo, of which there appear to be about one hundred thousand in the country. The buffaloes are very dark, almost black, with horns lying back upon the animal's neck, but in other respects they are hardly distinguishable from ordinary horned cattle. The value of cattle naturally varies in different parts; oxen are worth from 3_l._ to 10_l._ each, according to their size and capacity for draught, the greater part of the field labour being performed by those animals or by buffaloes. Sheep, goats, and pigs are also reared in large quantities. The wool of the first-named is used for spinning and weaving, and sheepskins with the wool left on are worn as winter garments. Cheese is also manufactured from sheep's milk, and a curious custom in Roumania is to make the cheese in the form of a long thin cylinder, wrapping bark tightly round it in the manufacture. From this slices are cut, bark and all, and served to the guest; this gives the cheese a slight, but not disagreeable, flavour of bark. Of cheese, wool, butter, and lard, considerable quantities are exported annually to Transylvania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.[58] So far as England is concerned, the only other products besides cereals, which we receive, are small quantities of linseed and rapeseed; but Roumania produces millet, which is coming into increased consumption, rye, beans, beetroot, which is converted into sugar in two existing factories, flax, hemp, and, as we have already said, vines and every kind of fruit and garden produce. Her soil is capable of growing, and formerly did produce, very good tobacco; but in this matter she has shared the fate of Ireland, for the necessity of levying a tax on the article led to the suppression of its growth in the country; and, lastly, we were assured by able agriculturists that there is no reason why there should not also be raised in Roumania a plant which, of all others, ministers most largely to the comfort of man and the prosperity of the land of its production, namely, cotton. [Footnote 54: If the reader refers to various works on the subject, Aurelian, Obedenare, Consul Vivian's report, &c., he will find what appear to be distinct though approximate estimates, but they are really one and the same, in hectares (2.47 acres), pogones (1-1/4 acres), and acres; and in none of them is the territorial change of 1878 considered. We received a set of statistics on the subject as relating to 1880, whilst at Bucarest, but on comparing them with Aurelian's work published in 1866 we found the same figures there. The following is the approximate proportion of cultivated land in pogones (1-1/4 acre):--