GRASS-FED BEEP. 203 



and bring us to justice for cruelty to animals. We wot that 

 the Puritans did it in ignorance and in imitation of their Eng- 

 lish fathers. Clover was introduced into England about the 

 year 1633, but the cultivation of Timothy and orchard grass 

 the English learned from us more than a century afterwards ; 

 and it was not till the Duke of Bedford made his experiments, 

 early in the present century, that the grass crop assumed the 

 importance it now commands ; and we do not think it has yet 

 generally attained the relative position and attention it deserves 

 among the products of the earth. It is like the air we breathe, 

 — so common and so cheap, that we undervalue it. We avoid 

 treading upon the blades of corn, but walk upon the velvety 

 turf without compunction ; but the grass " crushed to the earth 

 rises again," and is bound, like truth, to prevail over all its foes. 



Chemical analysis and careful experiment agree in assigning 

 a higher nutritive value to well-made hay, in comparison with 

 grain and roots, than is commonly supposed. The general im- 

 pression is, that grass-fed beef must necessarily be poor, and 

 that cattle fed on hay alone during the winter improve but 

 little in size and deteriorate in flesh. That grass-fed beef is 

 often poor, and that our herds make little growth during the 

 winter and are generally " spring poor " in April, we cannot 

 deny. But the lean, blue beef must not be charged to the 

 account of the grass, nor the skin-and-bone appearance of the 

 stock to the account of the hay. Let the cattle graze in pas- 

 tures luxuriant with white clover, redtop, June and orchard 

 grass, and the beef will be fit to set before an English king or 

 a New York alderman. The trouble with grass-fed beef is that 

 the pastures are either starved or overstocked ; and if the lean 

 kine that go bellowing about in the spring, or stand shivering 

 and shrivelled under the lee of some fence, could speak English, 

 they would say with Oliver Twist, " We want some more." 



We have seen cattle luxuriating in rich pastures whose flanks 

 and surloins fairly rolled with fat ; and we have no doubt that 

 beef thus made is more healthy than where the animal is con- 

 fined in a dark stall, condemned to breathe impure air, fed with 

 . oil-cake, and deprived of all exercise. We have also seen herds 

 of cattle wintered on hay, that continued growing during the 

 winter, and looked as sleek and thrifty in the spring as when 

 housed in the fall. Tiiere is no necessity, therefore, for poor 



