DISHORNING 271 



about 1890 that no less than two hundred thousand cattle and 

 horses were killed annually in the United States of America 

 by " horning " or " hooking," which must be accompanied by a 

 terrible amount of suffering on the part of the unfortunate 

 victims. It is a relic of barbarism of the worst kind, for 

 which there is no excuse, to shut up in a close place, where 

 escape is impossible, a number of fully armed beasts so 

 that they can maltreat and maim one another at will. Polled 

 cattle have been appreciated on the American prairies 

 because of the immunity enjoyed from the enormous losses 

 caused by cattle goring their neighbours, and because 

 horns are liable to become frost-bitten and diseased, and the 

 animals bearing them worthless in consequence. 



Dishorning is practised chiefly as a preparation for the 

 shutting of cattle in confined courts, but it is capable and 

 deserving of extension, more particularly in the Irish branch 

 of our live-stock trade, owing to the close proximity of 

 animals during shipment, and to the evil dispositions which 

 they display in a great measure as a result of the cruel 

 treatment they receive while being collected from all parts of 

 the country, and formed into herds, the individual members 

 of which are strangers to one another. It has been estimated 

 that there is a loss of los. to 155. per head, due to horn 

 wounds and bruises during transit, on Irish cattle brought 

 over to this country. With us the operation is almost 

 exclusively confined to steers, but in the United States of 

 America, where it has become deservedly popular in recent 

 years, even high-grade Channel Islands and other horned 

 cows are artificially polled in the manner indicated, without 

 any perceptible injurious results. There is a decided general 

 tendency to produce strains of polled cattle of well-known 

 horned varieties, and thus to breed the horns off in preference 

 to cutting them off. It is somewhat anomalous that by the 

 laws of Scotland and Ireland dishorning is legal, while in 

 England it is illegal, unless it be confined to means used to 

 prevent horn development. 



In the North, cattle should be housed by the end of 

 September ; in the South, before the beginning of November. 

 It is a fatal error to leave feeding beasts out at night in 

 early winter without proper protection from the inclemency 

 of the weather. Not only do they lose flesh rapidly, but 



