26 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



show you how a joint has become flaccid in that 

 ornamental appendage. This really means no more 

 than a coated tongue does in a child. It is a sign of 

 internal distemper. Nothing will satisfy the common 

 people but to slit the tail up by the softened spot and 

 bind in it a compound of salt and bruised rue. The 

 irritation produced by this treatment sometimes pro- 

 duces the same beneficial result that a bucket of 

 water dashed in the face of a sick pig does, but it is 

 not to be relied on. It may sometimes alter an effect, 

 but it removes not the cause. A few months since I 

 was summoned to inspect a yearling shorthorn bull 

 that was preparing for exhibition, and subsequently 

 won, but which just then happened to exhibit the 

 symptom of a weakened tail. Of course I looked on 

 gravely, and granted the cowman his way ; the 

 bleeding could scarcely do harm, but took the addi- 

 tional precaution of administering to the invalid a 

 common Cupiss's ball, broken up into pellets, in a 

 hornful of weak gruel. In a day or two he was 

 himself again, but whether the cure was attri- 

 butable to the dose or the doctoring, who shall 

 decide 1 My cowman and I, we complimented each 

 other, smiling — and with a reserved opinion each, 

 I fear. 



Fattening for shows is apt to spoil the reproductive 

 powers, if, indeed, inflammatory disease does not 

 overtake the patient sooner, as it has so sadly cut off 

 quite recently the Queen of Athelstane and Stanley 

 Eose. Hence Messrs. Towneley, Stratton, Booth, &c, 

 usually select a few as plums to exhibit, keeping the 

 burden of their breeding stock as lean as ever Alderney 



