8 AGRICULTURE. 



breeder is to furnish his countrymen with the dairy ; with 

 all its multitudinous comforts and luxuries. We scarcely 

 know a more important national object of its class, than to 

 place a free supply of milk within the reach of the great 

 body of our population. The next vocation of the breeder 

 is, to supply animal food milk and animal food in the 

 case of cattle wool and animal food in that of sheep. 

 Animal food is suited both to our climate, and to the hard- 

 working energy of our people. The breeder has to cater 

 for appetites, which bodily exertion has made rather active 

 than critical; as well as for others, of which sedentary and 

 intellectual pursuits have blunted the desire for quantity, 

 but at the same time stimulated the appreciation of quality. 

 Bearing these objects in view, we proceed to remark on 

 those qualities of the various descriptions of agricultural 

 animals which subserve to their attainment. 



From their general and hitherto progressive prevalence, 

 the new breeds of cattle and sheep claim our first notice. 

 We have already adverted to the manner in which (if 

 at the expense of a little accuracy we may use the most 

 expressive phrase) they were created. To the short-horns 

 we must award the merit of uniting milking qualities 

 with a propensity to get fat, to a degree which rarely, if 

 ever, had been previously found in the same animal. We 

 doubt, however, whether the mothers of the prize bullocks 

 are the animals which fill the milk-pail. To that very 

 simple agricultural implement is, as we fancy, to be traced 

 the slack and bare loin which is the characteristic failing 

 of this breed. In the shambles at Birmingham, where a 

 large proportion of the well-fed cows from our dairying dis- 

 tricts are slaughtered, you may generally perceive the blue 

 and bare spot on the loin, though the rest of the carcass 

 is loaded with fat. The advocates of the new breeds claim 

 for them, that with a given amount of food, and in a given 

 time, they will yield a larger weight of beef and mutton 

 than animals of the old races. With some qualification 

 we are prepared to admit the claim. In the case of se- 



