36 EARLY MATURITY. — QUALITY 



well ribbed home ; hips wide and level ; back straight 

 from the withers to the setting on of the tail, but short 

 from hip to chine ; skin soft and velvety to the touch : 

 moderately thick hair, plentiful, soft, and mossy. The 

 cow has the same points in the main, but her head is 

 finer, longer, and more tapering, neck thinner and 

 lighter, and shoulders more narrow across the chine. 



The astonishing precocity of the short-horns, their 

 remarkable aptitude to fatten, the perfection of their 

 forms, and the fineness of their bony structure, give 

 them an advantage over most other races when the 

 object of breeding is for the shambles. No animal of 

 any other breed can so rapidly transform the stock of 

 any section around him as the improved short-horn bull. 



But it does not follow that the high-bred short-horns 

 are unexceptionable even for beef. The very exag- 

 geration, so to speak, of the qualities which make them 

 so valuable for the improvement of other and less per- 

 fect races, may become a fault when wanted for the 

 table. The very rapidity with which they increase in 

 size is thought by some to prevent their meat from 

 ripening up sufficiently before being hurried off to the 

 butcher. The disproportion of the fatty to the mus- 

 cular flesh, found in this to a greater extent than in 

 races coming slower to maturity, makes the meat of the 

 thorough-bred short-horn, in the estimation of some, 

 both less agreeable to the taste and less profitable to 

 the consumer, since the nitrogenous compounds, true 

 sources of nutriment, are found in less quantity than in 

 the meat of animals not so highly bred. 



But the improved short-horn is justly unrivalled for 

 symmetry of form and beauty. I have never seen a 

 picture or an engraving of an animal which gave an 

 adequate idea of the beauty of many specimens of this 

 race, especially of the best bred in Kentucky and Ohio. 



