4 i8 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



strictly selected for dairying purposes, may beat it 

 in one if not in both respects. In Lord Rothschild's 

 well-known annual test, the Suffolk red-polled cattle 

 frequently beat the shorthorns and the Jerseys too. 

 Individual cows have established milking records as 

 remarkable as any, and as beef-producers these Suffolk 

 reds are very little behind the Aberdeen-Angus them- 

 selves. The Pan-American Show at Buffalo in 1901 

 showed that the feeding of the red Suffolk for 100 Ib. 

 of butter cost 10 dollars and 27 cents, as against 

 12 dollars and 10 cents for the shorthorn. Thus 

 it becomes evident that, small as the company is, 

 the polled cattle are equal, if not superior, to the 

 horned cattle of the world in every purpose for 

 which cattle are kept. 



It is not by chance that the polled breeds stand 

 so high as cattle of all-round excellence. Horn is 

 one of the most costly of productions, as we can 

 see when the stag annually renews his antlers, and 

 by marking the food-consumption and the relative 

 growth of horn and meat in the young bull, steer, 

 or heifer. A pound or two of horn the less means 

 many pounds of meat or gallons of milk, or both, 

 the more and the earlier. It is akin to the saving 

 we make for the bees by giving them comb, instead 

 of asking them to make it out of honey. We may 

 take it that the abolition of the horn has already 

 been decreed in the highest cattle circles. How will 

 the ukase be taken by the old aristocrats of short- 

 horns, Herefords, Sussex, Devons, and the rest ? In 

 how many years are the breeders able to get rid of 

 the unutilitarian horn without suffering their herds 

 to be contaminated by a red-polled or "doddie" 



