Management of Breeding Cattle. 147 



calves, I should keep them on skim-milk and linseed, as I do mv 

 early calves ; but as they will not be so forward and strong befos' ■ 

 winter as my later calves, which suck their dams, I should not 

 bring them in to calve till they are two years and eight or nine 

 months old, when they would also come in with the general herd. 

 I may here remark, as I perhaps have not sufficiently explained 

 before, that late calves, if they are brought in at the same age as 

 early ones, require more generous treatment, being too young to 

 take advantage of grass when it is in its most nutritious state. 



I have no faith in the idea which I have sometimes heard 

 expressed, that "roughing" calves (which means exposing them 

 to cold and hunger) makes them hardy. On the contrary, it has 

 the effect of weakening their constitutions ; and this system pur- 

 sued towards the young stock for two or three generations will 

 ruin the best breed of cattle in the country ; the offspring after 

 this time will have lost all the quality, early maturity, and pro- 

 pensity to fatten of their ancestors, and it will require years of 

 the greatest care to recover what is thus lost. On the other 

 hand, it is very injurious to force young animals, although it may 

 be necessary in those individuals which are intended to compete 

 for prizes. The tendency of such a system is to curtail their 

 usefulness as breeding animals, for, though most of them so forced 

 will breed, there is of course more risk in calving them, their 

 milking properties are greatly lessened, from those vessels intended 

 by nature for the supply of milk being coated with fat, and they 

 decay prematurely, and have all the marks of age upon them at 

 seven or eight, whereas I have bred from cows not so forced up 

 to twenty-two years of age. Nor is there any real reason for 

 forcing show-animals; forjudges can fully appreciate the merits 

 of cattle without their being so extremely fat as breeding-stock 

 are now exhibited at nearly all our shows. 



To show that all cattle-breeders of name are not advocates ol 

 the high-feeding system, I can say that, when I had the pleasure 

 of attending the late Mr. Bates's sale with the late Earl of Ducie, 

 the herd was brought to the hammer only in ordinary condition, 

 and some of the heifer-calves were really too poor ; yet this did 

 not seem to detract from their value in the eyes of breeders, for 

 the prices they produced were thought at that time very high. 

 Lord Ducie, as I well remember, gave upwards of 1000 guineas 

 for six animals (one being a calf), and how fully he was justified 

 in so doing was abundantly proved by the unprecedented prices 

 they and their produce realised at the sale of his own herd, when 

 the bull which he purchased for 200 guineas was sold for 700, and 

 many others in proportion. The Earl of Ducie himself was so 

 opposed to overfeeding breeding animals that he carried his views 

 almost to an extreme ; and all who attended the celebrated Tort- 



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