Time of Entry on Farms.. 323 



county cliief-constable to take his turn upon "a beat." Not in 

 harvest-time only, but always, the master can do far more with 

 his eye while cantering over the fields, or strolling leisurely 

 through the yards, than by the actual labour of ten pair of hands. 

 For instance, you know by your book when the different cows 

 should calve. See that there be ready gruel, and a horn to give 

 it, so that a search has not to be made at the last moment ; with 

 a well-aired loose box, and a dose of salts and ginger to follow 

 a few hours after parturition. The meanest particular should not 

 be neglected : it was bv such minute foresight and careful cir- 

 cumspection that " the Duke " won his great name. 1 ou will 

 find in his Despatches, after mention of the most important 

 business, an allusion to some myrtle plants he had been requested 

 to procure. 



Many an accident comes of a cow's being allowed to calve tied 

 up ; not to mention the additional torture the poor animal must 

 derive therefrom in the moment of her agony. See, too, that the 

 udder be tried each morning and evening by the herdsman, when it 

 has once begun to spring, and duly milked as it begins to fill : so 

 will many a cow be spared garget and milk-fever, which might 

 otherwise have spoiled or carried her off. See that she have no 

 turnips or cold water near, to gripe her after salts. Precautions 

 such as these constitute a main secret of the farmer's success. 



Upon this theme read the eloquent language of Mr. Caird, 

 while speaking of the eminent Shorthorn breeders on the south 

 side of Teesdale : — 



" Men are still," lie writes, " to be foi;nd there who Lave been bred from 

 their childhood to study the peculiarities of form and symmetry, which, com- 

 bined with early maturity and great weight, have given the improved Short- 

 horn its celebrity. Seldom leaving home ; often the first to see their stock in 

 ' the morning, and the last to visit them at night ; making the health of each 

 individual of the herd a study ; and enabled, by constant attention and ]iarti- 

 cular management, to encourage the development of such points as they think 

 requisite ; while everj*thing else on the farm is made subordinate to the stock — 

 these men have acquired a fame which is the result of such earnest application, 

 and cannot long be maintained without it." 



f' Your eye should be ever on the mov^e to mark that the foals' 

 paddocks have no rabbit-burrow improvised, as they often will be 

 in a night ; no open drain or loose stones about, whereby to strain 

 a fetlock ; no pitchfork or bucket left carelessly beside the shed ; 

 no nails or broken bottles lying about ; no open hurdles, vvherein 

 to entangle and break or strain a leg ; to see t^at their hoofs are 

 regularly trimmed, and no incipient sand-crack allowed to spring ; 

 to observe that no gas-tar be daubed near the brood-mare's box, 

 nor any other offensive smell be allowed which might produce 

 abortion ; that no alder-tree be near for her to crop, with an effect 

 equally fatal to your hopes ; to see that there be abundant litter 



