78 A HISTORY OF SHORT-HORN CATTLE. 



point which is not without its practical appli- 

 cation at the present time. He was also an 

 earnest student of feeding problems, and two 

 of his steers, "the brindled ox" of 1808 and 

 "white ox" of 1810, attracted much attention 

 and attested his skill in that direction. He ex- 

 perimented carefully upon the relative merits 

 of the systems of soiling and grazing, and in a 

 memorable address to the Boards of Agriculture 

 of the United Kingdom made a strenuous plea 

 for extended experimentation as to the various 

 breeds of live stock. It thus appears that 

 Thomas Bates was wide-awake to the necessi- 

 ties of his time in relation to successful farm- 

 ing, and in some respects at least a long way in 

 advance of his contemporaries. 

 Bates was an exhibitor of cattle at the Tyne- 



for the Newcastle market on the Saturday, and Bates told him that however 

 ready he was for breakfast he should have none until he had counted the 

 butter. There were 300 half-pounds to go to the market, besides what was 

 used in the house and sold at home. There were then thirty cows which 

 had calved, and the butter sold for above one shilling' the half pound. This 

 left more than ten shillings for each cow in bvitter alone, besides the value 

 of the milk otherwise sold, while all the calves were reared by the pail 

 and none allowed to suck. Had all the milk been creamed and made into 

 butter there would have been twice the number of pats. Mason, thrown 

 off his guard at this display of dairy produce, confessed to Bates: "You 

 can go on breeding Short-horns because they pay you in milk, butter and 

 beef, but we cannot do so unless we sell them at high prices to breeders." 

 Mason, as Bates plainly told him, was keeping at the time three sets of 

 cows, one to breed calves and then get dry (which was no hard matter) in 

 order to attract notice by their high condition, a second as wet nurses to 

 rear the calves, and a third to supply his family with milk and butter. 

 " This," Bates added many years afterward, ' IH a system that would ruin 

 any man if he had the land rent free and no outgoings to pay, yet many con- 

 tinue to pursue this reckless course in order to gain premiums, attract pub- 

 lic attention and gratify their vanity at the cost of their pockets." Farmer's 

 Magazine, 



