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ther they are to be used for -n'ork, the dairy, or for beef. It is much more 

 pleasant to handle them as a working team or as milkers ; and in the 

 stall they fatten much easier than a peevish, irritable animal. They 

 should be free from vicious habits. Notwithstanding the old adage that 

 "a good cow may have a bad calf," and vice versa, yet, as a general 

 thing, I would not select a bad cow with the expectation of having a good 

 calf; and as the doctrine is pretty well established that the acquirements 

 of an animal, as well as their natural qualities, are transmissible from 

 the parent to the offspring, a cow that has acquired the habit of throwing 

 down fences with her horns, kicking, or any other vicious practice, ■vrill 

 be very likely to transmit those qualities to her calf. 



Havinsx selected the stock to breed from, the next thing for the consid- 

 eration of the farmer is, how they shall be raised, or how taken care of. 

 In many respects, good breeding is synonymous with good feeding ; and 

 the farmer should not, on any account, undertake to raise more cattl-e 

 than he can keep well. It is absolutely necessary, in order to produce 

 the full muscular development of the animal that it should be kept grow- 

 ins: from the time it has calved until it has attained its full jjrowth. Thev 

 should be provided with warm sheds or stables through the winter to 

 protect them from the inclemency of the weather. Without a warn 

 shelter during the winter, and good keeping the season through, the bes , 

 imported breed that is brought into our country will deteriorate and 

 become no better than our common stock. Take, for example, a calf oi' 

 the best Durham or Devonshire breed, and winter it on the north side o.' 

 a straw stack, and there will be a shrinking away of all its fine propor- 

 tions. It will become pot-gutted and hump-backed ; and whatever care 

 may be taken of it afterwards, it never fully outgrows the effect of its 

 first wintering. 



I do not think that the climate of Wisconsin, or of any State of the 

 Union north of forty or forty-one degrees of north latitude, is as favor- 

 able to that perfect development of the cattle kind as a more southern 

 latitude ; and although they may be made to obtain about the same state 

 of perfection as they do further south, it must be at the expense of con- 

 siderable more care and attention than is required in a more temperate 

 climate. I think that that portion of the United States embraced within 

 from about the thirty-fifth to the forty-first degree of north latitude, is 

 the best adapted to the production of good cattle. 



Care should be taken of the health of the cattle ; and as cleanliness 



