BREEDING AND GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 25 



surface. By the 1st of October the calves should be housed 

 for the winter ; if allowed to remain out later than this they 

 will not thrive well, the nights becoming cold, and they will 

 also be liable to disease. Of course they may be turned out 

 during the day, but even this we do not recommend for long, 

 as the grass they eat gives them a dislike to the drier food they 

 ought to consume during the hours they are in the yards. They 

 should be gradually brought from grass to dry food and winter 

 management, so as to become accustomed to the change without 

 loss of condition. Sheltered yards, well littered, with good 

 hovels, are the best situations for calves in winter. The 

 smaller the lot in each yard the better. Pulped roots and 

 chaff put together for a short time, to allow of a gentle fermen- 

 tation are the materials on which we must chiefly rely. The 

 chaff may be a mixture in equal quantities of oat straw and 

 hay; over this a small quantity of artificial food may be dusted, 

 in which the greater the mixture of different materials the 

 better — say, barley, wheat, and bean meal, with finely- ground 

 cotton-cake or linseed-cake, and perhaps a little palm nut 

 meal. Yearlings will eat from IJlb. to 21b. per day. The cost 

 of such food, taking 21b. per diem as the average consumption, 

 will not exceed from Is. 2d. to Is. 6d. a week. The gain in 

 the greater growth and better health of the animal will be 

 very manifest. The natural food goes further, and the manure 

 is improved. 



As a preventive to quarter ill or blackleg — a very fatal 

 disease, to which calves are subject on certain soils, and which 

 is most prevalent in autumn, when the natural food is often at 

 its richest, we strongly recommend setons being inserted in the 

 dewlap and occasionally moved. Whether the seton acts as a 

 counter irritant, or in some other way, we do not know, but we 

 have had abundant evidence to satisfy as to the efficiency of 

 the preventive. 



We should not recommend for calves, the use of any condi- 

 mental foods which are so loudly advocated by the different 

 makers. As a rule, these foods consist of a mixture of finely 

 ground grain, with a percentage of locust beans, flavoured and 

 seasoned with certain stomachics and stimulants ; the latter 

 being commonly fenugreek, aniseed, carraways, gentian, mustard, 



