Management of Breeding Cattle. 145 



afterwards discontinue it altogether, continuing the food till they 

 are turned out to grass. Then I give them 2 lbs. of oilcake daily, 

 which I continue in addition to their other food for 12 months, 

 that is, till they go to grass the following year ; in July and 

 August of which year they are served by the bull, so that they 

 will calve the year following just before going to grass, when 

 they will be about two years and four months old. I allow their 

 calves to run with them during the summer; when four or five 

 months old I take the calves away and dry the dams, by which 

 means the heifers get a much longer rest than the older cows 

 before they calve again, thereby encouraging their growth, and 

 under this system they can produce calves at an early age with- 

 out interfering with the full development of their forms. 



Some are of opinion that heifers should not calve till they are 

 three years old. JNIy experience does not warrant this view of 

 the subject. Not to multiply instances, I may mention that a 

 heifer of mine calved at fifteen months and two weeks old, the 

 calf being at its full time. This animal gained a first premium 

 as a two-year-old in-calf heifer, and a second premium the follow- 

 ing year as a cow in milk, when there were an unusual number of 

 competitors, and I afterwards sold her at a high price to go 

 abroad. The sire of the calf was a bull calf about six months 

 old, sucking a cow in the same field with the then heifer calf ; 

 they were neither of them a Aveek over six months old ; the con- 

 nexion was witnessed by my cowman, or I should have scarcely 

 thought it possible. I have been careful since never to allow 

 the bull and heifer calves to be within reach of each other after 

 four months old. 



Those calves which drop late in March and during the summer 

 months I allow to run with cows, often purchasing nurses for the 

 purpose ; it being desirable to remove them from their dams, as 

 cows being sucked by calves will not always take the bull so 

 soon as those milked by hand ; these later calves are served by 

 the bull at the same age as the early ones. 



I never give any artificial food to animals after they have 

 completed their growth, and not often after eighteen months old, 

 up to which age I consider it is profitable to the breeder, whether 

 of Short-horns or any other breed, to give a moderate quantity of 

 oil-cake, thereby increasing the size of the animal and the value 

 of the manure. 



My cows have grass alone during the summer, late in the 

 autumn a little hay at night and in the morning, and hay and 

 roots when in milk in the winter, the dry cattle having pulped 

 roots and straw-chafF during that season. This comparatively new 

 mode of feeding cattle is one of the greatest improvements of the 

 present day : formerly, when cattle were fed on roots and straw, 



VOL. XIX. L 



