NEAT CATTLEi 



i3l 



The bull should have good keeping, so that he may be ic 

 prime condition when he is put to cows. 



But although the circumstance of raising the best stock, and 

 such as are brought forth in proper season, is essential to im- 

 prove the breed, yet it is believed that the superiority of the 

 English breed of cattle, is owing principally to the ditferent 

 keeping which they give them Mr. Featherstonhaugh, a dis- 

 tinguished farmer, in the state of New-York, after a journey of 

 fifteen hundred miles in the diftesent states, for the puipose 

 of viewing the imported cattle, and to examine the method af- 

 ter which their owners keep them, as well as the condition of 

 our own native cattle, remarks, that in order to keep up the 

 great qualities of the im.ported breeds, we must remember 

 that in their native country it is considered indfspensible to keep 

 them extremely well, anil in a very different manner from the 

 general custom prevailing here ; which is, in summer to leave 

 cattle to kelp themselves to what they can find, even in the 

 most severe drought ; and in v.inter, to give them a moderate 

 quantity of hay and straw* That in England, vrhere they are 

 less troubled with dry weather than we are, they give them 

 green crops and roots in abundance, and that if all this provi- 

 dent attention be necessary in that n oist climate, it is certain^ 

 the breed will degenerate with us if it is not kept in high con- 

 dition. He observed that he was convinced that negligence 

 was the universal cause of diseases, and that they ordinarily 

 arise from too high feeding or too low. In the one case, the 

 digestive powers are embarrassed, in the other they are not 

 sutRciently exercised, and in both the animal suifers ; that an- 

 imals, regularly yet plentifully fed and v*-ell housed in winter, 

 are generally healthy. 



In those places where milk may be considered so valuable as 

 to make it an object to substitute other food for the raising of 

 calves, the following experiment of Mr. Crook, mentioned in 

 letters and papers of the Bath and^ West of England Society, 

 are worthy of consideration. In 1787, he purchased three' 

 sacks of linseed, of the value of about nine dollars, which 

 lasted him three years ; one quart of linseed was boiled in six 

 quarts of water for ten minutes, to a jelly, which was given to 

 the calves three times a day mixed with a little hay tea. Thus 

 he was enabled to raise in 1787, seventeen calves ; in 1788, 

 twenty three ; and in 1789, fifteen, without any milk at all. He 

 states that his calves throve much better than those of his 

 neighbors, which were fed with milk. It appears from this 

 statement that less than eighteen cents worth of flax seed, 

 with a trifle of hay, is suflicient for one calf. Linseed oil 



