8 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



tial to the highest development and success with this race, and while they will, under these 

 circumstances, thrive well, they will not endure neglect and stinted feed without greatly dete 

 riorating in condition. Short-horn cows that prove poor milkers will always make good beef, 

 which cannot be said of some other breeds, and their calves are also worth more to the butcher 

 than those of the smaller breeds that are especially valuable for dairy use. 



Prof. Low, a well-known English authority, says respecting this breed: 



&quot; The multiplication in this country of a breed so greatly improved by art must be 

 regarded as highly conducive to the improvement of this branch of rural industry. A large 

 part of the cattle of England consists of a mixture of races having no uniformity of charac 

 ters, and generally defective in some important points. The possession of a breed which can 

 always be resorted to for crossing these mixed and defective races, is a great means of 

 improvement, applicable to a class of animals that require it the most, causing the larger 

 cattle of the country to approach a better model and assume a greater degree of uniformity. 

 Further, the extension of the pure breed, and the multiplication of its numbers, are conducive 

 in a high degree to its own pennanence and improvement. When but few cultivators of it 

 were to be found, the system of breeding from animals of the same family, and from the 

 nearest affinities of blood, could scarcely be avoided by those who wished to preserve their 

 stock from deterioration; but now so many fine animals are reared of the same race that no 

 one is laid under the necessity of breeding solely from a few individuals; and in the future 

 cultivation of the breed, hardiness, soundness of constitution, and the milking properties of 

 the females may all receive their due share of attention. The external form has been already 

 brought to all the perfection which art seems capable of communicating, and now those other 

 properties remain to be attended to, without which no further refinement of breeding will 

 avail for the purposes of profit to individuals and benefit to the country.&quot; 



Absolute perfection in breeding is perhaps an impossibility, but could we combine the 

 fine milking qualities possessed by the Jerseys with the size, symmetry, beauty, aptness to 

 fatten and other fine beef qualities of the short-horn, the breeder of such an animal might 

 well feel that he had attained a standard in his art, which might properly be called a creative 

 art, beyond which his ambition or imagination for improvement could scarcely extend. 



Description Of Short-liornSt One of the best descriptions we have seen of this 

 breed is that given by Allen in his &quot;American Cattle;&quot; and without attempting to improve 

 upon it, as we indorse it in all respects, we quote it as follows : To begin with the head ; 

 &quot;the muzzle should be fine and yellowish, or drab in color, not smoky or black; the face 

 slightly dishing, or concave; the eye full and bright; the forehead broad; the horns showing 

 no black except at the tips, and standing wide at the base, short, oval-shaped, spreading 

 gracefully out, and then curving in with a downward inclination, or turning upward with a 

 still further spread (as either form is taken without prejudice to purity of blood in the 

 animal), of a waxy color, and sometimes darker at the tips; the throat clean, without dewlap; 

 the ear sizable, thin, and quickly moving; the neck full, setting well into the shoulders and 

 breast, with a slight pendulous hanging of the skin, (not a dewlap,) just at the brisket; the 

 shoulders nearly straight, and wide at the tops ; the shoulder-points, or neck-vein, wide and 

 full; the brisket broad, low, and projecting well forward, sometimes so much as almost to 

 appear a deformity; the arm gracefully tapering to the knee, and below that a leg of fine 

 bone, ending with a well-rounded foot; the ribs round and full, (giving free play to vigorous 

 lungs,) and running back well towards the hips; the crops full, but as a rule scarcely equal in 

 fullness to the Devons; the chine and back straight from the shoulders to the tail; the hips 

 uncommonly wide, and level with the back arid loin; the loin full and level; the rumps wide: 

 the tail set on a level with the back, small and tapering; the thigh full and heavily fleshed; 

 the twist wide; the flank low and full; the hock, or gambrel joint, standing straight (as with 

 the horse), or nearly so; the hind leg, like the fore one, clean and sinewy, and the foot small. 



