No. 9. 



Cattle. 



279 



been overfed, requires similar feeding; and 

 the offspiirig: of such animals require and can 

 digest more food ihan other.--, who have lived 

 upon little. 



All growinrr animals, inchulinjj mankind, 

 ought to be sufficiently well fed to preserve 

 health and Ptrcngth, but never to be st imulntod 

 by exce.-s of food. The children of parents, 

 however, w'io have, throngh many genera- 

 tions, been well fed, would perish if given no 

 more food than would be sufficient for an Irish 

 or Highland Scot's peasant child. 



The chief qualities sought for in cattle are 

 the tendency to fatten on little food, and that 

 to yield abundance of rich milk. The ten- 

 dency to fatten is indicated chiefly by the ca- 

 pacity of the chest. Animalsof all species, says 

 Mr. Knight, all other qualities being equal, 

 arc, I think, capable of labor and privation, 

 and capable of fattening, nearly in p^-oportion, 

 as their chests are capacious : but tlie habits 

 of ancestry will operate very powerfully. 



It is the width and depth of frame,- says 

 Mr. Berry, which confers weight, and not the 

 mere circumstance of great height. While 

 equally great, if not greater weights, can be 

 obtained wilh shorter legged animals, they 

 are, independently of other recommendations, 

 generally found to possess better constitutions 

 and grenter propensity to fatten. 



Mr. Knight says, the constitutional dispo- 

 sition to form lilt, is certainly hostile to the 

 disposition to give milk. Cows which give 

 little milk oflen present large udders, which 

 contain much solid matter; and, to inexperi- 

 enced eyes, a two year old Hereford cow 

 would give a promise of much milk, where 

 very little would be given. A narrow fore- 

 head, and a long face, nearly of the same 

 width from end to end, as in the Alderney 

 cow, certainly indicates much more disposition 

 to give milk than the contrary form, which I 

 have pointed out as indicative of a disposition 

 to fatten. 



Fat animals are more generally those of the 

 north, where cold diminishes sensibility. Fat 

 indeed, appears to be the means which nature 

 very extensively employs to lower sensibility 

 by interposition between the skin and the 

 central parts of the nervous system. Fat ani- 

 mals, accordingly, have not only less sensibil- 

 ity and irritability of the skin, but of the or- 

 gans of sense generally. Thinner animals, 

 on the contrary, are more generally those of 

 the south, and have more acute sensibility and 

 exquisite .sensation. 



In reply to this observation, Mr. Knight 

 Bays, I do not doubt but you are right respect- 

 ing the use of fat in cold climates; all sleep- 

 ing animals, through winter, go to sleep in a 

 fatted state. I do not think that breeds of cows, 

 ■which give much rich milk, are very hardy. 

 The Alderney cows are what the Herefijril- 



shire farmer calls very nesh, that is, very in- 

 capable of bearing hardship of any kind, and 

 particularly cold, con.sequently of greater sen- 

 sibility. 



Cows which give much milk have the 

 power of eating and digestingmuch fliod, and 

 they require, whilst tliey give much milk, a 

 very abundant and good pa-turo. The breeds 

 of cows wMiich give le.^s milk, and present 

 greater disposition to become fat, are gene- 

 rally less msh, and will fatten upon less food. 

 The influence o? \hc fcclinirn is very consid- 

 erable. I have observed that whenever a 

 young Hereford cow disliked being milked by 

 tl.e dairymaid, she soon ceased to give milk ; 

 and I do not doubt that, in all ca.ses, if the 

 calves were twice every day permitted to suck 

 after the dairy mitid had finislied her labor, 

 the cows would longer continue to give milk 

 and in larger quantity. 



This tends to corroborate what has been 

 said as to greater sensibility being favorable 

 to milkin;:. 



If this led only to distinction of these two 

 kinds as to milking, namely — that of fatness 

 and thinness, and that of smaller and larger 

 organs of sense and greater or less sensibility, 

 it would still be valuable, as showing, either 

 at a later or an earlier period, what we may 

 expect in this important particular. But per- 

 haps its utility may extend still further, and 

 enable us to improve the race. 



It may form a basis for our determining 

 whether, in endeavoring to improve a breed, 

 fatleners may most easily also become milkers, 

 to some extent ; or milkers may, to a similar 

 extent, become fatteners ; and W'hat are the cir- 

 cumstances which would most favor such par- 

 tial interchange, if not absolute improvement. 

 Indeed from these principles! would conclude, 

 that an animal fattening in the north, would 

 become "k better milker in the south, where 

 a more genial temperature would render fat 

 less necessary, would increase sensibility, and 

 would cherish the secretion of milk, so inti- 

 mately connected with that excitement of the 

 reproductive functions which '\vanner climates 

 produce. 



As these two desirable qualities are both 

 dependent upon one system, and as they are 

 opposed to each other, (for excess of one se- 

 cretion is always more or less at the cost of 

 the other,) they will be most easily obtained 

 by being distinctly sought for, and the animal 

 of diminished sensibilitv will most easily fat- 

 ten, while the animal of increased sensibility 

 will most readily yield milk. 



These views are confirmed by the conduct 

 of the London dairy-men. While they ac- 

 knowledge that the Aldcrneys yield the best 

 milk, they keep none of them, whatever they 

 may pretend, because these animals are pecu- 

 liarly delicate, and more especially because 



