244 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



WORCESTER. 



From the Report of the Committee on Fat Cattle. 



Some of your committee at least, were impressed with the 

 importance to farmers and feeders, in this county, of feeding 

 judiciously and economically. They believe, to make it a pay- 

 ing, or at least a profitable business, that cattle should always 

 be bred or bought, for feeding purposes, of good form and con- 

 stitution, of a quiet disposition, and aptness to take on fat, or 

 to be able to make most pounds of beef where it commands the 

 highest prices, for it always costs more to make the three cent 

 (shank and dewlap) beef than to place it on the rump and 

 sirloin ; and this can only be done by selecting good formed 

 animals. 



The practice of most of our farmers is to work moderately 

 their oxen from three to six years old, and then turn them over 

 to the shambles. This may easily be done on our upland farms, 

 where little but good hay is cut. 



Young oxen may do much work and continually gain in 

 weight, until fit for slaughter, without much grain or roots. 

 With good hay or pasturage and judicious working, an experi- 

 enced feeder may gain his farm-team work at little expense. 



But the farmer who overworks his oxen till they are eight or 

 ten years old, keeping them always thin and hungry, and — 

 because beef commands a high price, or because his cattle 

 suddenly fail — at once takes them from the yoke and puts them 

 to good hay and meal, expends in the first three months as 

 much to get them into fair working order as they would bring 

 if fatted. 



Besides, in this last way of keeping, the fat and lean are not 

 properly mixed or marbled together, and the consumer avoids 

 it if possible. The only paying way, is to keep all working 

 stock in good condition, always fit for the shambles as well as 

 the yoke, and by so doing, the owner on any day can put his 

 cattle into market when it is in most demand and at the highest 

 price. 



The difference in quality between this young meat — juicy 

 and tender, which has always been in good condition — and that 

 made from overworked cattle, disordered by age and bad usage, 

 or that which, by transportation over the railroads from the 



