YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 165 



um size, which indicates a strong constitution. A too large 

 one is a deformity, a too small one a sign of weakness ; it is 

 but a wall for the chest. When too large, it forces the animal 

 to turn slowly, like a long ship, and makes rapid motion diffi 

 cult. Breadth of chest is to be sought after, for manifest rea 

 sons. The flank should drop well down, not so much for the 

 profit it gives as to preserve a general symmetry of form. The 

 beast should be well ribbed back. That is to say, there should 

 be little space between the last of the short ribs and the hip 

 bone. If an animal is too long in body, it is apt to sway, or 

 sink in the back, on the same principle as a long rope stretched 

 from two points sinks at the centre. The feet and legs should 

 be small, though not weak. The shin-bones make fine soup. 

 In Kentucky, they esteem as peculiarly delicious a part which 

 we throw away, viz., the feet. They first parboil them until 

 well cooked, when the hoofs come off. They are cooled, and 

 then reboiled, and before being served up, cream is added, with 

 chopped onions, and some pepper and salt. Mr. Clay said he 

 would travel further to get a dish of feet than a bowl of green 

 turtle soup. I think we had better get our wives to try it. 



The loin should be broad and full here is the prime beef. 

 The tail set on a level with the back, and large falling from 

 well back, and tapering to the joint. The perfection of girth, 

 therefore, in an animal is the perfect circle, filling up the crops 

 well. 



Twenty-eight years ago Mr. Clay began breeding Shorthorns, 

 and imported the first thoroughbred into Madison county, Ken 

 tucky. He was a candidate for the Legislature at the time, 

 and thinks he lost many hundred votes because he dared to 

 pay $100 for a blooded bull. His neighbors thought it better 

 to send him to a lunatic asylum than to the Legislature. Things 

 are changed now. These very men come to him and pay some 

 times $300 for a single animal. In former and more prosperous 

 times he has had 500 or more animals feeding on his farm at 

 once, and has handled as many as a thousand head in a year. 



