WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD ANIMAL. 189 



carcass. As a worker, he is better than the other. His large 

 lungs give him more wind, and better endurance; his broad, 

 well-spread anatomy gives more sinewy power of course he is 

 a better worker as a laboring beast. He is remarkable through 

 every stage of his life, from calf hood to maturity ; to the feeder, 

 to him who wants a working ox, to the butcher, and finally, to 

 the consumer. He is good all through his life, and always in 

 demand, at the top price, for one purpose or another. So with 

 the female. If the breed be not of the dairy quality, spayed at 

 a proper age, she thrives apace, fattens readily, and is fully ripe 

 at three or four years, according to her breed, and is a profitable 

 beast altogether. If a dairy cow, her full development of frame 

 gives room for her milk secretions in their proper places. Her 

 food, not only keeps her in good flesh, but assimilates into milk 

 abundantly; and finally, done with milking, she readily takes on 

 flesh for the shambles, and dies profitably. 



We need give no further illustration of the contrast between 

 poor and good cattle, than to refer the reader to the group of 

 Texan cattle on a previous page, as a sample of the one; and to 

 either cut of the improved breeds we have described, as a sample 

 of the other. One exhibits the poor qualities of his race, the 

 other exhibits the good qualities, and no one need be mistaken 

 in his choice between them. 



It may be asked, is beauty of form a highly desirable quality 

 in a neat animal? Most certainly. But the eye and the judg- 

 ment must be educated to know in what that beauty consists. 

 A greyhound is a beautiful creature, as a dog; such a figure 

 would not be beautiful in a bull, an ox, or a cow. Beauty is 

 relative in economical animals, and in the eye of judges should 

 always comport with utility. Yet there are outlines of beauty 

 which no one, not a simpleton, can mistake ; and beauty is always 

 preferable to ugliness, even when an ugly form, as it sometimes 



