100 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



to take meat. A beast having a perfect touch will have a thick, loose skin — 

 ■floating, as it were, on a layer of soft fat, yielding to the slightest pressure, and 

 springing back toward the finger like a piece of soft, thick chamois leather. — 

 8uch a skin will be usually covered with an abundance of glossy hair, feeling 

 like a bed of moss, and hence is very appropriately termed a mossy skin. But a 

 thick, firm skin, which is generally covered by thick-set, hard, short hair, always 

 handles hard, and indicates a bad feeder. 



The size to which cattle may be fattened is truly astonishing. Evelyn men- 

 tions the exhibition in London of an ox that was 17 feet from the end of tlie tail 

 to the nose. At Bartholomew Fair, in 1703, a great Lincolnshire ox was exhib- 

 ited, measuring 12 feet from the rump to the face, and standing 19 hands high. 

 The Bradwell ox, five years old, weighed 4,320 pounds ; but it was so fat that it 

 moved with dilliculty. Mr. T. Bond, of the Lower Marsh, Lambeth, killed an 

 ox whose total weight was 294 stone 3 pounds, with 40 stone 4 pounds of loose 

 fat.* As a general mode of fattening oxen, it has been recommended to give 

 them daily 2 lbs. of oil-cake, 5 lbs. of barle^^-meal, and 5 lbs. of hay-chaff, with 

 a. plentiful allowance of Swedes. By a composition for fattening cattle, manu- 

 factured by Mr. Warnes, of Walsingham, IS'orfolk, it is said that beef may be 

 grown more cheaply than by any of the ordinary methods of feeding. Everybody 

 knows that horses frequently pass some of their corn quite undigested ; but this 

 circumstance rarely happens Avith horned cattle ; for, as they chew the cud, they 

 can digest their food more effectually than those which do not — hence it is well 

 known to graziers that one-third less will be enough for an ox than for a horse or 

 ■an ass. According, however, to the experiments of De Dombassle and Biot, this 

 depends, at least in the case of roots, such as carrots and potatoes, upon boiling, 

 so as to break the globular crust enveloping the nutrient matter,! which the stom- 

 ach cannot well effect. 



Cattle are fond of the tender tops of furze and in Shetland they show a liking 

 for the drift sea-weed on the beach. Liimsus says that cows are fond of the 

 leaves of the bird cherry. Culpepper states that the leaves of the black alder 

 ■"are good fodder for kine, to make them give more milk." Oxen will some- 

 times browse also on the leaves of the privet. 



A few acres of land cultivated with burnet, lucerne, cabbage, turnips, and car- 

 rots, will supply the cow-keeper with a constant succession of green fodder for 

 his" cattle, and save him the expense of purchasing so much hay, frequently at a 

 high price, and greatly improve the flavor and increase the quantity of the milk. 

 For the latter purpose, carrots are excellent in winter and early in the spring, but 

 the butter made of the cream is generally a little higher colored, being a deep 

 yellow, though not worse in quality than that which is made when the cows 

 feed in the summer months on sweet meadow grass. Some farmers give their 

 •cows malt-dust, especially in the winter — not the malt-kiln dust, which should 

 be reserved for a top-dressing for corn, but the germ of the barley, which sprouts 

 out while it is making into malt. After the malt has been dried on the kiln, and 

 passed over a wire-screen, it falls through and separates from the malt. This 

 malt-dust is of a very warm, dry, nourishing quality — causes the cows to drink 

 freely, and yield a large quantity of excellent milk. The London milk would, 

 probably, have a less watery flavor, if the bad quality of grains, given so largely 

 •Jo the cows, were corrected by the constant addition of some malt-dust, which is 

 found to improve the (iuality and flavor, and to augment the quantity of the milk. 

 :.£ach cow might have half a peck of it at her breakfast, and as much at the time 

 - of milking in the afternoon. From M. Boussingault's experinients on the feed- 

 ing of cows with beet-root and potatoes, we learn that when cither of these veg- 

 etables is given, to the exclusion of all'other food, it does not fatten cattle nor in- 

 crease the quantity of their milk. Two cows, which were fed exclusively on 

 beet-root, fell off iii 17 days nearly one-sixth, and their milk diminished from S to 

 9 litres per day to 5 litres ; but, when they were turned into pasture, they soon 

 resumed their former weight, and yielded their former quantity of milk. Tiiey 

 •were next fed exclusively on potatoes, when they fell off still more in flesh than 

 ihey did on beet-root, and the milk was reduced to two litres each per day; but, 



• The Smithfiold stone of 8 lbs. we presume ia what is here referred to. [EdiJor. 



t This nimtor, formerly iinmed aviadinc, from il« occurring; in starch, M. Biot has tei-mcd dextrine, from 

 its siiigulnr pnnRTly of polarizing the ruya of light toward lh«.' riylil. 

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