226 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



mals are to be neglected. A smooth animal is the most profitable 

 animal generally, because he is thick in flesh and thin in tallow. 

 A wasteful animal is generally patchy, or, in other words, a steer 

 is "cowy" and a wether is "ewie." The writer's father used to say, 

 "a thick-fleshed steer always pushes a big shoulder." A piece of 

 chuck out of a ripe steer is better eating than the sirloin of an 

 ill-bred, ill-fed, aged "crittur." A smooth animal should be ripe, 

 as it dresses neater and brighter, and, like ripe fruit as against un- 

 ripe fruit, is tenderer, more juicy and palatable. It's an utter 

 impossibility to crowd all the forequarters into the hind quarters 

 of a sheep or a steer. The inferior joints of a steer or wether 

 vary in price in righteous proportion, just as the price of superior 

 and inferior animals varies, as we find when we go to a first-class 

 store for our meat. Smoothness is not a proof of fat, but it is 

 a proof of an even laying on of flesh. Animals that are fat are 

 not always smooth or thick in flesh. By smoothness is not -meant 

 a smooth coat, but a smooth, well rounded body. The aristocratic 

 butcher the same as the good breeder asks for a smooth, evenly- 

 balanced animal. A butcher does not look for a steer with an 

 abnormally big loin, but looks for smoothness the same as the 

 breeder. The breeder that goes in for breeding such monstrosities 

 as animals heavy in the hind quarter and, light in the fore quarter 

 will surely land in the bankruptcy court. 



A few years ago it was a hard matter to find many who knew 

 much about the good qualities of mutton. Today things are dif- 

 ferent, as most people know that it is one of the finest meats 

 we have. Since the introduction of the mutton breeds into this 

 country and the constant use of purebred rams, the quality of our 

 mutton has risen considerably. As feeders we are scarcely up to 

 the British flockmasters, but our methods are improving as time 

 goes along. While our beef and pork is praised by Britishers who 

 come to this country, our mutton does not receive very eulogistic 

 comment from them, neither are they quite ready to admit that 

 even our pork is as good as that raised in their country. It may 

 not be generally known that some of the New York and Boston 

 first-class restaurants are regular importers of high-class English 

 mutton, for the reason that they cannot get the right quality at 

 home. The main trouble with our mutton is that it is not properly 

 finished. In the first place, the lambs or sheep are not treated so 

 generously in their younger days as the young lambs of Great 

 Britain are, where not only have they continual access to the most 

 luxuriant pastures, but are at the same time furnished generously 

 of such rations as oil cake, etc. Mutton is one of the most nutritious 

 and easily digested of meats, and if more of it was eaten in the 

 place of pork there would be fewer dyspeptics among us. On 

 account of its size, the mutton carcass is among the handiest of all 

 carcasses. A sheep can be killed and divided up between four 



