284 HOUSE-FEEDING OF CATTLE 



The practice of selling fat and store animals, and even 

 at times horses, by live-weight has long been successfully 

 carried on in America, and in this country it is making 

 slow but sure progress. It is now rendered possible by 

 the facilities that Government has offered by passing an 

 Act making the erection of machines for weighing live 

 stock compulsory in all places where tolls are charged. 

 Two men who have done much to popularise the use of the 

 weighbridge in this country are John D. M'Jannet of Stirling, 

 N.B., and the late Westley Richards, of Oakham. Weight- 

 guessing competitions at shows and sales are now very 

 common and well supported, and have fully demonstrated 

 how little the farmer with ordinary experience of live stock 

 knows by the eye of the weight of fat animals. 



The scales form a ready means, by which the farmer can 

 satisfy himself, of a chief factor in settling the question how 

 much money his beasts are worth. 



To ascertain the weight is an extremely important point, 

 as without such help the farmer with his slender experience 

 in the market is placed at a great disadvantage by the 

 middleman with his wide experience. 



John D. M'Jannet's channel iron cattle-weighing cage 

 (p. 285) is much in demand for use on the farm. A 

 9-foot cage holds one big bullock, or four stirks, or seven 

 to ten sheep. Two men can put it on or take it off the 

 weigh-table within a minute. The cage consists of two sides, 

 weighing 168 Ibs. each ; two sole-plates of roughened iron, 42 

 Ibs. each ; a front door with two strong iron bands across and 

 hung on two iron crooks; one Rigwoodie chain for confining 

 cattle ; and (necessary for sheep or pigs) a back door. 



No one believes that a record of the weight of an animal 

 will alone indicate its value ; such knowledge, however, along 

 with a settled conviction of the quality indicated by the 

 breed of the bullock and the state of forwardness of his 

 condition, makes the road to the calculation not only easy, 

 but reasonably certain to be accurate. 



The Board of Agriculture Report for 1904, in the Journal 

 of March 1905, shows twenty-one markets in Great Britain 

 scheduled under the Act, with 1,177,717 cattle entering them, 

 against 1,262,301 in 1903. This decrease in numbers was the 

 first slight check to " the slow but steady progress of the practice 



