722 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



obliged to take the stock of his predecessor, and this he can only get rid of or improve 

 to his mind by degrees. The farm-horses in most parts of England are much too cum- 

 brous and heavy, and are more fitted for drawing heavy drays or waggons in towns, 

 than for the quick step required in the operations of agriculture, 



4469. The objections of Davis of Longleat to the using of large heavy-keeled horses, in 

 preference to the smart, the active, and the really useful breeds, merit particular attention. 

 In some situations, the steepness of the hills and the heaviness of the soil require more 

 than ordinary strength ; but in such cases, he maintains, that it would be better to add 

 to the number of horses, than to increase their size. Great horses not only cost propor- 

 tionably more at first than small ones, but require much more food, and of a better 

 quality, to keep up their flesh. The Wiltshire carter also takes a pride in keeping them 

 as fat as possible ; and their food (which is generally barley) is given without stint. In 

 many instances, indeed, the expense of keeping a fine team of horses, amounts nearly to 

 the rent of the farm on which they are worked. They are purchased young when two 

 years old colts, and sold at five or six years of age for the London drays and waggons. 

 The expense of their maintenance is very seldom counterbalanced by the difference of 

 price, more especially as such horses are gently worked when young, that they may 

 attain their full size and beauty. In ploughing light soils, the strength of a dray-horse 

 is not wanted ; and in heavy soils, the weight of the animal does injury to the land. 



SuBSECT. 2. Of the Choice of Live Stock for the Purposes of breeding or feeding. 



4470. The most desirable jiroperties of live stock destined for food are considered in The 

 Code of Agriculture, in respect to size, form, a tendency to grow, early maturity, hardiness 

 of constitution, prolific properties, quality of flesh, a disposition to fatten, and lightness 

 of offal. 



4471. Before the improvements introduced by Bakewell, the value of an animal was 

 entirely judged of by its bulk ; and if a great size could be obtained, more regard was 

 paid to the price the animal ultimately fetched, than to the cost of its food. Of late, 

 since breeders began to calculate with more precision, small or moderate-sized animals 

 have been generally preferred, for the following reasons : 



4472. Small-sized animals are more easily kept, they thrive on shorter herbage, they 

 collect food where a large animal could hardly exist, and thence are more profitable. 

 Their meat is finer grained, produces richer gravy, has often a superior flavor, and is 

 commonly more nicely marbled, or veined with fat, especially when they have been fed 

 for two years. Large animals are not so well calculated for general consumption as 

 the moderate-sized, particularly in hot weather ; large animals poach pastures more than 

 small ones ; they are not so active, require more rest, collect their food with more la- 

 bor, and will only consume the nicer and more delicate sorts of plants. Smalt cows 

 of the true dairy breeds give proportionably more milk than large ones. Small cattle 

 may be fattened solely on grass of even moderate quality ; whereas the large require the 

 richest pastures, or to be stall-fed, the expense of which exhausts the profit of the farmer. 

 It is much easier to procure well-shaped and kindly-feeding stock of a small size than of 

 a large one. SmalUsized cattle may be kept by many persons who cannot afford either 

 to purchase or to maintain large ones, and by whonn the loss, if any accident should 

 happen to them, can be more easily borne. The small-sized sell better; for a butcher, 

 from a conviction that, in proportion to their respective dimensions, there is a greater 

 superficies of valuable parts in a small than in a large animal, will give more money for 

 two oxen of twelve stone each per quarter, than for one of twenty-four stone. 



4473. In favor of the large-sized, it is, on the other hand, contended, that without debat- 

 ing whether from their birth till they are slaughtered the large or the small one eats 

 most for its size, yet on the whole the large one will pay the grazier or farmer who 

 fattens him as well for its food ; that though some large oxen are coarse-grained, yet 

 where attention is paid to the breed (as is the case with the Herefordshire), the large 

 ox is as delicate food as the small one ; that if the small-sized are better calculated for 

 the consumption of private families, of villages, or of small towns, yet that large cattle 

 are fitter for the markets of great towns, and in particular of the metropolis ; that were 

 the flesh of the small-sized ox better when fresh, yet the meat of the large-sized is un- 

 questionably more calculated for salting, a most essential object in a maritime and com- 

 mercial country, for the thicker the beef the better it will retain its juices when salted, 

 and the fitter it is for long voyages ; that the hide of the large ox is of very great conse- 

 quence in various manufactures ; that large stock are in general distinguished by a 

 greater quietness of disposition ; that where the pastures are good, cattle and sheep will 

 increase in size, without any particular attention on the part of the breeder; large animals 

 are therefore naturally the proper stock for such pastures ; that the art of fattening cattle, 

 and even sheep, with oil-cake, being much improved and extended, the advantage of that 

 practice would be of less consequence, unless large oxen were bred, as small oxen 



