CATTLE. 97 



CATTLiE : 



TIIEIE BEEEDS, MAl^AGEMEKT, ETC. 



CATTLE, THEIR VALUE.— There is not a race of animals to which the 

 community is on the whole more indebted, than to cattle. They not only 

 cultivate the land, but afford food of various kinds, in different circum- 

 stances of their existence ; and also, at death, supply very important 

 articles of clothing and utility, and are amongst those animals to which 

 we owe by far the most of the comforts and conveniences of life. Not 

 to mention the use of cattle in many districts of country for the pur- 

 poses of labor ; they suj)ply, during life, those most important of ne- 

 cessaries, milk and cream ; they afford the luxuries of cheese and of 

 butter; and at their death they are the sources of supply of the food 

 which has become associated with national peculiarities even, and which 

 is one of the most nutritious of the necessaries of life. Nor in death 

 does their utility cease. Their hide provides the protection to our feet 

 and the trappings to our horses— their horns, combs and ornaments — • 

 their hoofs even, and their waste, supply glue and gelatine; while their 

 bones afford the handles for our knives and many useful articles in 

 manufactures; and the refuse again, of these, returns to our soils as a 

 most valuable manure. 



THE DAIRY BREEDS OF CATTLE.— The great object for which cattle are 

 kept by the farmer is either to grow beef for the market, or to produce 

 milk, which shall be converted into butter or cheese, or sold as milk, to 

 supply the great towns. Hence the former selects the fat-producing, 

 and the latter the milk-producing class of animals. Nature, as a gen- 

 eral thing, has provided that different races of animals, and different 

 individuals of these races, are, more than others, adapted to the secre- 

 tion of one or the other of these necessary products. The objects of 

 the two secretions are essentially different, and the tendencies and 

 qualities necessary for both are never active in the same animal at the 

 same time. For while the former is a reservoir of the carbonaceous 

 matter of the food, laid by for subsequent use in the respiratory system, 

 the latter is the secretion of a substance necessary to support the young 

 progeny until it is able to sustain itself, and to procure from the green 

 pastures the food there provided for it. Hence, to produce milk is, 

 more or less, the natural quality of all kinds and races of cattle ; but 

 some will produce large quantities, but thin and poor in quality ; some 

 smaller quantities, and rich in oily matter, while others will afford a 

 small quantity, but abundant in solid matter ; and the first class would 

 be selected by the milk-man near the populous city, the second by the 

 dairy-man whose product was intended to be butter, and the third by 

 the maker of cheese. There are some tribes of cattle that are both 

 good fatteners and good milkers, but never at the same time. 



The milk-producing breeds are more widely diffused than any other, 

 because they are capable of being kept to advantage on qualities of 

 5 



