DAIRY MANAGEMENT AND PROFITS. 155 



into his grog, until he had eventually so let himself 

 down that he was insensibly enjoying pure water : 

 until his gratification was nothing " but for the name 

 of it," as the Irishman remarked on being conveyed 

 in a bottomless sedan-chair, an undertaking which 

 necessitated his feet keeping pace with the bearers. 



" There is no good of late calves." Quite right, 

 my man ; and that the shrewd Galloway farmer 

 knows too. Calves to do well, that is reared, should 

 be dropped in the latter part of the winter, or the 

 beginning of spring. " Nearly a year's growth and 

 profit is lost if the calf is born in the middle of 

 summer." In Galloway, the calf's pull on her mother 

 is abridged much as in Selkirkshire. She is fed well 

 in winter with hay and turnips and potatoes, " for 

 the breeder well knows that if she is neglected or 

 stinted in her food during the first fifteen months, 

 she does not attain her natural size, nor does she 

 feed so well afterwards." 



Buffon's rule is that the calf should be left with 

 its mother for five or six days, that it may be kept 

 warm, and suck as often as it has occasion ; it may 

 then be removed, or it will weaken the mother too 

 much : being brought to suckle two or three times a 

 day. To fatten quickly, they should every day have 

 raw eggs, and boiled white bread (to the pointer 

 certain death) and milk. In four or five weeks they 

 will be excellent eating. As soon as the calf begins 

 to notice, as the nurses say, he should have beside 

 him a lump of chalk to lick, to correct any acidity 

 that the milk might give. For much the same 

 purpose, I expect, the celebrated Kintore ox had a 



