The Nursery in 



land than any other man, unless in so far as he 

 makes it more productive. 



I start the new-born calf on two pints a day, in 

 three feeds, and he is fed three times a day until 

 he chews the cud, at 10 to 20 days ; but by this 

 time the milk has been gradually raised to four 

 quarts, and now the first solids are added never 

 before the cudding, because that, and not sooner, 

 is the stage at which the young constitution is 

 sufficiently developed to assimilate solids. I have 

 seen an obstinate manufacturer persistently adver- 

 tising his solids for use from birth, and I have 

 followed up his result, among a trail of dead calves. 

 There may be a food other than milk for the age 

 before cudding, but if so, I do not know it, and 

 should I hear of it, I shall take care to see it tried 

 on some other man's calves first. Let us bear in 

 mind that, before the cudding stage, a calf is 

 but potentially a ruminant, not actually ; that a 

 ruminant, when said to be eating solids, is not 

 really eating at all, but gathering up its food into 

 a sort of stomatic ante-chamber, to be really eaten 

 when it lies down later to cud ; and that stuff 

 requiring to be ruminated cannot but do harm 

 when fed to the potential ruminant before it can 

 ruminate, while the ante-chamber is not yet 

 normally prepared for it. 



If we reflect that the process of nutrition in a 

 calf before birth is practically continuous, and 

 supplied at the natural temperature of its own 

 body, it may help us to see the importance of 

 feeding often, in small quantities, and as nearly 



