114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



milk. They got sufficient milk from the mother until they got 

 large enough to digest ordinary food. 



It has been said that butchers do not find white cattle so good 

 as cattle of other colors. I have known something about butch- 

 ering, and I have often heard it remarked by butchers that a 

 white ox would not weigh as much as a dark-colored ox, in pro- 

 portion to their size, and that the handling of the beef indicated 

 a quality better than it really was ; that white cattle would indi- 

 cate a very good kind of beef, but when you came to dress it, it 

 would not weigh. I do not know any reason for it, unless it is 

 because it is not as compact as the beef of dark-colored cattle. 

 If any one can give the reason I should like to know it. 



Mr. Perkins. The question has come into my mind, whether, 

 if a man was blindfold, and feeling of a white ox and a black 

 one, he would be likely to be deceived. Anything white looks 

 larger than a dark-colored thing. I know that butchers fre- 

 quently say they don't like to buy white cattle and lump them, 

 because they get deceived in the weight. A white ox may give 

 us an idea that he will weigh more than he really does, because 

 his color makes him look larger. 



I doubt whether white cattle and horses are as tough as 

 others. We have had occasionally wall-eyed cattle with a mix- 

 ture of Durham blood. They were nervous and irritable, and 

 I supposed it was because they could not tell exactly the object 

 that was near them. These animals may look to be of good 

 strong constitution, but I have noticed that, generally, they will 

 not wear well. A wall-eyed ox will not work with one that is 

 not wall-eyed ; they have not such strong constitutions. Xow, 

 in relation to horses, you will find that most of our horses that 

 are white when ten years old, were gray when three, four, five 

 or six years old. The skin of these animals is a dark mouse 

 color. I do not know that they arc any more tender than 

 darker colored horses, but I know that any horse that has one 

 or two legs white and the rest dark is inclined to scratches, and 

 white-legged horses arc always more inclined to scratches than 

 any other. Where a colt is foaled white, his skin is white ; but 

 where it is foaled dark, and turns white as it grows older, the 

 skin altvays has that dark color. 



Something has been said in relation to breeding dairy cows ; 

 whether a cow that docs not come in before it is six years old is 



