THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 383 



increase about three pounds in the day each beast, 

 while in those of the smaller sorts, the increase is not 

 more than about one and a half. It is of course very- 

 clear that such large sized stock is the most proper 

 and beneficial for those rich feeding pastures on which 

 they can be fattened, and also for being made fat on 

 the more expensive kinds of dry food, as taking the 

 price at only eightpence the pound, the former will 

 pay two shillings a day for their keep, when the latter 

 will only afford half of that amount ; while the differ- 

 ence in the consumption is often very immaterial, and 

 in few cases more than a fourth part less in the 

 small than the large animals of this sort, which are 

 equally good of their kinds, as many correct trials have 

 fully demonstrated. Large oxen are in many cases 

 known to increase on good feeding grounds in the 

 summer months from four or five to nearly six hundred 

 pounds each in the course of from twenty to twenty- 

 five weeks ; but as the last is an uncommon and ex- 

 traordinary profit, it may be more properly stated that 

 a beast of this sort, of a good kind, in the lean state, 

 the live weight of which is about eighty-five stone, 

 of fourteen pounds, taking the dead or carcase weight 

 at one half, which is more than it is in such cases, and 

 allowing the above price of eightpence the pound for the 

 whole full or living weight, or which is the same thing, 

 fourpence the pound for the dead or carcase weight, the 

 animal will be worth about twenty pounds to buy in ; 

 and to afford a fair average profit, it should increase in 

 weight three hundred pounds, and be sold for about 

 thirty pounds. The expense of fattening which, the 

 first cost of the beast, the rent of the land on which 

 it is fed, taking it at an acre and a half, (and it 

 cannot probably be less), for taxes, and the interest 

 of capital, will be about twenty-five pounds four shillings 



