THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



m 



HIGHLAND BEEF AND MUTTON. 



'J'he Iiiglihmtlb of Wales, Iiclaiul, and tlie norlh liave 

 many cliaracteristics partaking of a common identity 

 relative ta their cuttle. The cauries that iiroduce such a 

 biuiilarity of results moiit at all times a careful inquiry. 

 The superior quality of beef and mutton which our high- 

 laud herds and flocks yield is a topic that pre-eminently in- 

 vites discussion about Christmas. 



r>etweca our hill-fed butcher-meat and the greasy stuft' 

 exhibited at our Cliristmas fat slock meetings and markets, 

 there is a wide contrast in more respects than one, whether 

 we examine the animals when alive, their carcases J after 

 they are slaugliterod, or their meat when it appears at table- 

 In such examples, generally speaking, quality is greatly la 

 favour of the former, but quantity as much in support of the 

 latter. 



When we begin, however, to examine individually hill- 

 bred animals, or the quality of meat they yield, and the 

 weight of the carcase compared with the quantity and quality 

 of food consumed, a very wide diversity of results is then per- 

 ceptible. Highland cattle, including oxen and sheep, are as 

 far from being uniform in this respect as lowland ones, the 

 returns yielded from equ:U quantities of food consumed 

 being as greatly diversified in the one case as in the other. 

 With these results, farmers in the highlands arc not more 

 familiar than are those of the lowlands. 



From a physiological point of view it is very interesting 

 to investigate such diversities of results in one's own flock or 

 herd. We do our best to select bolls and cows, rams and 

 ewes of as uniform a type as we can, and of the best qua- 

 lity of breeding stocks in tho country. Farmers have done 

 so from time immemorial. But when we begin to gather 

 together the fruits of our labours for market, they require 

 no little drafting before they will suit a purchaser. The 

 offspring is thus not so uniform as the parent stock. Herds 

 and shepherds are alive to this retrograde movement : hence 

 the care with which they annually select those they intend 

 to keep for a breeding stock, from those they intend to send 

 to market. 



We have only to examine the details of management of 

 our hardy mountain breeds of oxen and sheep, in order to 

 perceive the cause of this retrograde movement. No lan- 

 guage can adequately convey to the minds of those not 

 practically acquainted with the northern highlands a just 

 conception of the hardships our hill-breeding stocks are 

 often called upon to endure during the autumn, winter, and 

 spring months. The herds and shepherds accustomed to 

 attend them have not unfrequent'y some ditSculty in giving 

 credence to what they see. When viewed prospectively, 

 what appeared as an absolute impossibility to-day, is retro- 

 spectively looked back upon from to-morrow with an eye 

 of romance as it were, so inexplicable are the ways and 

 means with which Nature adapts herself to her own peculiar 

 exigencies in a highland storm. 



The chief cliaracteristics in the management of hill stock 

 that claim attention have reference to the diversified nature 

 of the produce of our highland pastures, the amount of 

 exercise stock experience in gathering their food, the efi'eets 

 of the same upon muscular development, the severity of 

 the climate, and the privations of winter. A very cursory 



survey of these will suflice to show that the improvement of 

 our mountain breeds of oxen and sheep is rather a broad 

 concern, more so than is compatible with the forcing system 

 now pursued in the management of our improved lowland 

 stocks; while it will, at the same time, prove that there is 

 no stock more susceptible of improvement than our high- 

 land herds and flocks. 



The food consumed by our mountain stocks, when ex- 

 clusively confined to the hills, is about ns diversified in 

 quality as can well be imagined. Both on the west coast 

 and some parts of the e^ist we have seen a highland ox 

 knee-deep iu the ocean amongst seaweed to-day, and half- 

 way up to perpetual snow to-morrow, amongst heath and 

 bent. When sent to the hills to shift for themselves, the 

 variety of herbage is so great that- some animals take to 

 eating sea-wrack, heath, and such like, owing to a deranged 

 state of the functions. Sheep f.re subject to an equally 

 diversified dietary, deranged state of the system, and to 

 similar habits and consequences generally. Another class 

 of animals, again, may be seen always actively busy in 

 search of the finer herbage, shunning the coarse, consumed 

 by the preceding class, unless under the pinching extremes 

 of nccessilyj when the former cannot be had. 



It is the seveiity of the climate during the winter season, 

 and the privations and hardships consequently experienced 

 by young stock, together with the coarse herbage they are 

 often compelled to consume, that deranges their digestive 

 and alimentary functions, producing those constitutional 

 changes of internal as well as external configurations so 

 conspicuously manifested in herds and flocks. In the low- 

 lauds, with an abundance of aftermath, young clovers, &e., 

 farmers are familiar with the difficulty experienced in pre- 

 venting calves and lambs from getting " a set" immediately 

 «fter they are weaned ; but when hill-calves and lambs are 

 left to shift for themselves amongst the bleak mountains of 

 the north, it is not surprising that they should lose (he 

 symmetry of their parents — becoming stunted, unsightly 

 starvelings before the return of another grass season. It 

 would rather he an exception to ordinary rule were the con- 

 trary experienced. 



Although the grass season is short in the highland glens 

 of the north, yet vegetation is rapid, yielding in many places 

 a rich luxuriant bite to stock. It is very remarkable how 

 fast animals will fatten upon it — alike black cattle, sheep, 

 and deer. We have some experience iu the fattening of our 

 improved breeds on the best grazing grounds of the low- 

 lauds, but we have never seen animals lay on fat so fast as 

 in some of our best highland glens during the grass sea- 

 son; while the quality of the meat they yield for table 

 Cbeef, mutton, and venison) maintains a still higher degree 

 of superiority. 



In results of this kind there is nothing but wliat is easily 

 accounted for, when the facts of the case are duly taken into 

 consideration, as all the means are present necessary for 

 their production. During the short period in question, for 

 example, heat, light, and moisture are abundant, while the 

 naiTow strips of land upon which the best herbage grows 

 are rich and well adapted for its luxurious vegetation under 

 such conditions. The rich and finely-flavoured beef, mut- 



