SHELTEE OF FEEDING OX. 553 



natural state of living than being tied up by the neck in a 

 stall. 



In what is termed feeding in hammels, there is a shed at 

 one end fit to hold two oxen, with a court of corresponding 

 size at the other end, so that the inmates (tan keep under cover 

 or go into the open air as they choose. This is a still more 

 near approach to the natural life of an ox in the field, and the 

 improvement on the flesh of the animal by this method of 

 treatment is shown by the preference given by butchers to 

 animals fed in this manner over those fed in stalls or boxes. 



A large court surrounded by sheds, to and from which the 

 animals have unrestrained liberty, is objectionable merely on 

 account of the fights apt to arise when a number of animals of 

 different degrees of strength are fed together.* 



An unusual interest has of late arisen among agriculturists 

 in respect to the means of keeping up the temperature of the 

 body of the ox during his confinement in being fattened for the 

 market. This excitement appears to have taken its rise in 

 some remarks made by Liebig on the importance of guarding 

 fattening animals from cold. But the idea has been so over- 

 strained as to leave the fact forgotten that oxen, like other 

 animals, are not mere physical machines, to be influenced with- 

 out limit by material agencies, and that, in dealing with living 

 action, all our proceedings must be in accordance with the 

 laws of living action. It is very doubtful if close-covered 

 apartments and artificial heat, as some propose, will ever be 

 advantageously employed in the rearing and feeding of oxen. 

 Doubtless the advocates of such plans urge ventilation at the 

 same time ; but they can have hardly considered how difficult 

 ventilation becomes under the use of artificial heat in close 

 apartments, and how greatly the risk must be increased attend- 



* For a more particular account of these several arrangements and their 

 advantages and disadvantages, see the 'Book of the Farm,' vol. i. p. 293. 



