02 IMPROVEMENT OF THB BaEBDB. 



greatly increased, it was discovered that they could not 

 exist unless they had access to streams which had 

 acquired brackish particles from the soil. If salt, in 

 places devoid of it, was not furnished to them byman* 

 they became stunted, unfruitful, and the herds soon 

 disappeared. Even in this country, the free use of 

 salt is found to be highly beneficial to our domestic 

 animals, preventing the occurrence of many of those 

 diseases which are otherwise sure to follow the use of 

 food such as is mentioned above, and ensuring that 

 sound health which is so conducive to the accumulation 

 of fat. 



(81.) Differences in the quality of Mutton. — I shall 

 now enter a little into the manner in which the quality 

 of the flesh may be affected, and the methods of judging 

 of the different states or conditions, in which it may be 

 found under various circumstances ; premising that it 

 requires much experience, to enable a person to pro- 

 nounce with confidence, as to the value of the muscular 

 parts, from the inspection of a living animal : — The flesh 

 of different specimens of the same animal, varies not so 

 much from breed or descent, as from age, feeding, and 

 exercise. That of the young is soft and gelatinous, the 

 fibres being small, weak, and much interspersed with a 

 substance termed, from its loose appearance, cellular 

 tissue. This tissue exhibits in the spaces between the 

 muscles {layers of flesh) small masses of delicate fat. 

 The greater bulk of the latter is situated immediately 

 beneath the skin, and occasions that beautiful rotundity 

 80 much admired in children. As the animal advances 

 in life, the fibres become firmer, larger, and more 

 approximated, the cellular tissue disappears to a gree/ 



