416 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



them to get a horn caught and wrenched off, to the 

 cow's great physical and nervous damage. Almost 

 as often as not, a truck-load of horned steers comes 

 into Chicago spattered with blood as the result, it 

 may be, of a single tragedy. As cattle commonly 

 go mad at the scent of blood, we can scarcely imagine 

 the damage that is thus done to the intended meat. 

 It may or it may not be that the wages of un- 

 necessary cruelty to cattle intended for slaughter are 

 cancer and other human diseases. We draw a veil 

 over the horrors of a cattle-boat, and even over that 

 part of them that can be ascribed solely to the 

 possession of horns. Far slighter inconveniences than 

 these are enough to abolish the decoration. Polled 

 beasts can run in the yard and fatten there, while 

 the expense and house-room needed for the tying-up 

 of the picturesque, wide-horned steers are an in- 

 creasingly important item to the farmer, the butcher, 

 and the consumer. As the world gets a little more 

 economical, even so slight an advantage as this will 

 come to decide far more important questions than 

 that of whether a cow shall have horns. 



Advantages ? We can only conceive of one 

 that horns may sometimes be useful for tying a rope 

 to. It is an advantage that would be far more 

 likely to appeal to the American cowboy than to 

 the English cowman. Yet the reign of the polled 

 beast is far more advanced in America than in this 

 country. The Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association 

 in the United States has more than a thousand 

 members, and the register contains nearly a hundred 

 and one thousand names. If the cow is to be taken 

 primarily as a beef-producing animal, then the pre- 



