146 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



go. The whole operation does not take more than from two 

 to five minutes. 



There is a brisk, business-like air about such a trans- 

 action which cannot but offer a contrast to the long 

 and tedious method whereby in this country forty beasts 

 such as these would " change hands." 



This account, supplemented by the reports of other 

 visitors to the United States, gave an impetus to the 

 movement in England in favour of substituting the scales 

 for guesswork in buying and selling stock. The discussion 

 upon the subject has become general ; the powerful 

 support of Sir John Lawes, and of a host of agricultural 

 leaders, have pressed the question forward, so as to ripen 

 it with more quickness than that with which such matters 

 usually come in this country to maturity. 



Instances might be enumerated of many stock-keepers 

 who have sought the assistance of the scales in carrying 

 on their business. Thirty years ago Mr. T. Horsfall, 

 writing in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 

 remarked that he had weighed his fattening cattle for a 

 number of years, and his milch cows for two years, using 

 the weights chiefly as a guide to their treatment, but 

 incidentally also as a basis for sale. 



The main difficulty in selling stock by live weight, and 

 the point on which doubt chiefly can arise, is the per- 

 centage of offal. This has been the subject of much 

 controversy. Mr. Horsfall, in the article above quoted, 

 recommended that " the usual computation for a well-fed, 

 but not over-fat beast is live to dead weight as 21 to 12," 

 or about 57 per cent, carcass ; " with such modifica- 

 tions as suggest themselves by experience." Mr. Robert 

 Stevenson, from numerous experiments, calculated that 

 every 100 lbs. of live weight would give 577 per cent, of 

 dressed meat. Mr. Ewart constructed a table in which 

 he estimated the proportion of beef to range from 45 up 

 to 70 per cent, of live weight in proportional ratio to the 

 size of the animal. The article, however, published by 



