204 Progress of Agricultural Knowledge 



of Spurry or of Maize (Indian corn), which was recommended at 

 the Doberan meeting of German farmers to be fed off green. 



From green crops we are naturally led to the stock which is 

 fed on them ; but so much has been done during forty years by 

 the Smithfield Club for our cattle, that little can be expected 

 in four years from our Society beyond a wider exhibition of the 

 superiority of English breeds. As those, however, who have not 

 studied the subject undervalue sometimes the shows of fat cattle, 

 because the individual animals are too fat for consumption, I think 

 it may be useful to prove what the Smithfield Club has really done. 

 Grazing animals in a wild state, according to Dr. Liebig, will 

 hardly become fat at all. Deer in a park, for the same reason, are 

 not killed before they are six or seven years old ; and many may even 

 now remember that mutton was once eaten when five years old. 

 But by selection of individuals in breeding it was found that this 

 time might be shortened. First, the Leicesters — then our larger 

 long-woolled sheep, the Cotswolds — and last, the short-wools, or 

 Southdowns — have been cultivated on this great principle of early 

 maturity ; and the Southdowns, as well as the others, have been 

 brought to market as mutton in four, three, two, and lately on 

 some farms at one year of age : so that, to say nothing of root- 

 crops having been multiplied four times in weight, the same amount 

 of green food which formerly gave us a sheep only every fifth year is 

 able to produce us now a sheep every year — that is, five sheep for 

 one. A deduction must of course be made for the breeding ewes. It 

 is but common justice to the Smithfield Club to show this vast good 

 which they have done to the country. There is also a Scotch breed 

 of improved sheep, the Cheviot, which I believe would be better 

 suited than our Southdowns for the mountainous parts of Southern 

 England. The same principle has been applied to horned cattle, 

 of which we have also three established breeds — the Short-horns, 

 the Herefords, and the beautiful Devons. Though early maturity 

 has not been carried so far with them, no breed out of Great 

 Britain can compare with them in aptitude to fatten. It is said, 

 indeed, that better milkers may be found than even the short- 

 horns ; and this may be the case : but milk alone cannot be made 

 the test of cattle even for a dairy farm, because the cows which 

 are necessarily discarded each year, for age or barrenness, ought 

 to be suited for fatting. In cattle, too, a Scotch breed, the Ayr- 

 shire, may stand by the side of our own, as it appears to unite 

 in a high degree the two requisites of milking and grazing, both 

 upon moderate land ; but whether it be suited to our rich southern 

 meadows must be very doubtful. 



All these breeds are now fatted chiefly, not on grazing pastures, 

 but on arable ground. The origin of this practice was no doubt 



