16 THE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



examples of accidentally early breeding which have turned out 

 well. So fully satisfied are we, from our own experience, that 

 with generous feeding heifers may calve down when two years 

 old, without injury either to growth or milking qualities, that 

 we adopt the plan of taking a calf from animals intended for 

 beef. Those who buy in much of their stock might carry out 

 this practice. We can often buy, during summer or autumn, 

 yearling Irish heifers ; if these were served at once, and done 

 well to through the winter, the plan would answer. Where 

 breeding is carried on, we are quite certain of the profitable 

 nature of this practice. We ascertain at an early period 

 whether the animals are likely to make valuable milkers, and 

 such as are not promising can be fed off after the calf is weaned. 

 An impression prevails that early breeding affects after growth ; 

 but we have not found it so where care was exercised as to food. 

 The late Mr. Edward Bowley, who was -well known as an 

 authority on Shorthorn management, alludes to the subject in 

 his prize Essay in the "Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural 

 Society." His practice was to bull the heifers dropped from 

 December to the end of February, in July or August of the 

 following year — that is when they range from sixteen to 

 eighteen months old — they thus would calve just before going 

 to grass — when they are about two years and four months old. 

 He says : " I allow their calves to run with them during the 

 summer. When four or five months old I take the calves away, 

 and dry the dams, by which means the heifers get a much 

 longer rest than the older cows before they calve again, thereby 

 encouraging their growth ; and under this system they can 

 produce calves at an early age without interfering with the full 

 development of their forms." He also mentions a case of very 

 early breeding by a heifer that calved at fifteen months, having 

 been served by a six-months old bull calf whilst both were with 

 their dams. The heifer took the first prize as a two-year-old 

 in-calf heifer, and a second prize the following year as a cow in 

 milk, in a strong class, and was afterwards sold at a high price 

 to go abroad. This is important evidence bearing on the point 

 we are anxious to see elucidated. Our own experience is that, 

 so far from early breeding injuriously affecting future size, the 

 heifer, if generously fed, appears to grow out in consequence, 



