108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



two or three year olds. The meat matures more slowly, and is 

 stronger when it is ripe. I agree with everything that Mr. 

 Smith has said in regard to color, and it is confirmed by the 

 facts I have stated. 



Now, there are certain other curious facts with regard to the 

 component parts of animals. Last summer I had occasion to go 

 several times to the Hoosac Tunnel, as a member of the legisla- 

 tive committee on that enterprise. I stopped one day at Shel- 

 burne Falls, and endeavored to find out what it was that had 

 made that village. They told me it was cutlery. I went into 

 one of the manufactories, and through the politeness of the 

 superintendent I was enabled to examine the shin-bones of 

 cattle used in the making of knife-handles. I found there were 

 two kinds of shin-bones ; and I asked the gentleman who was 

 kind enough to show me the works what the difference was. 

 " Why," said he, " one is the New York bone and the other is 

 the Boston bone. The New York bone is the best ; it is the 

 heaviest. The price is the same in the market, but the cattle 

 from Ohio and Illinois that are brought to New York have 

 larger, heavier shin-bones than the compact and snug Northern 

 cattle that come mostly into the Boston market." So that, so 

 far as the production of a certain kind of bone is concerned, 

 that comes into one category, and the production of meat into 

 another. Large bones and the best quality of meat do not go 

 together. 



I found another curious fact in this county. I was at a town 

 on the Merrimack River not long ago, in the night time trying 

 to edify the people, and in the daytime endeavoring to get edifi- 

 cation from them ; and I found that the chief business of the 

 place was the manufacture of horn combs. I found that there 

 was a difference in the horns of animals as well as in the bones ; 

 that the horns coming from Kentucky and New York were 

 poor, and not well adapted to the purposes of comb-making. 

 The horns belonging to those animals that I have just described 

 as possessing the best qualities as meat-producing animals — the 

 well-organized Northern cattle, which are unquestionably Devons 

 and grade-Devons — these are the horns for comb-making ; 

 whereas the Kentucky, Ohio and New York horns are vastly 

 inferior. I come to the conclusion, then, that to get an animal 

 for the best-flavored beef, you must have a small bone and a 



