1022 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



agreeable to nature, and therefore to be preferre<i to any other that can be adopted, to allow the calf to 

 suck its dam, as it is sometimes done in the county of Sussex, and generally in W igtonshire. 



6833. According to Marshal, the best method is this : The calves suck a week or a fortnight, according 

 to their strength (a good rule) ; new milk in the pail, a few meals ; next, new milk and skim-milk mixed, 

 a few meals more ; then, skim-milk alone, or porridge made with milk, water, ground oats, &c. and some- 

 times oil-cake, until cheese-making commences ; after wliich, whey porridge, or sweet whey, in the field ; 

 being careful to house them in the night, until warm weather be confirmed. {Midla?id Counties, vol. 'u 

 p. 338.) This method of suckling is not, however, free from objection ; and, in the ordinary practice of 

 rearing calves, it is held to be a preferable plan to begin at once to teach them to drink from a pail. The 

 calf that is fed from the teat must depend upon the milk of its dam, however scanty or irregular it may be ; 

 whereas, when fed from a dish, the quantity can be regulated according to its age; and various substitutes 

 may be resorted to, by which a great part of the milk is saved for other purposes, or a greater number of 

 calves reared upon the same quantity. {General Report of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 5!.) Yet it would seem to 

 be a good practice to allow calves to suck for a few days at first, if there were no inconvenience to be 

 apprehendeti, both to themselves and their dams, from the separation afterwards. 



()834. When fed from the pail, tlie average allowance to a calf is about two English wine gallons of milk 

 daily, for twelve or thirteen weeks ; at first, fresh milk as it is drawn from the cow, and afterwards skim- 

 milk. But after it is three or four weeks old, a great variety of substitutes for milk are used in different 

 places, of which linseed.oil cake, meal, and turnips, are the most common. 



fi83.5. Where calves are reared loith skitn-milk, it should be boiled, and suffered to stand until it cools to 

 the temperature of that first given by the cow, or a trifling degree more warm, and in that state it should 

 be given to the calf Milk is frc<iuently given to calves warm only ; but that method will not succeed so 

 well as boiling it. If the milk be given over-cold, it will cause the calf to skit or purge. When this is the 

 case, jmt two.or three spoonfuls of rennet in the milk, and it will soon stop the looseness. If, on the con- 

 trary, the calf is bound, bacon-broth is a very good and safe thing to put into the milk. One gallon of 

 milk per day will keep a calf well at first. The usual allowance is about double after the first eight or ten 

 days, and this is increased with the age of the animal. After it is thirteen weeks old, it will do very well 

 upon grass or other food, without any milk at all. A calf may then be supported without milk, by giving 

 it hay, and a little wheat-bran, once a day, with about a pint of oats. The oats will be found of great 

 ser\>ice as soon as th^ calf is capable of eating them. The bran and oats should be given about mid-day ; 

 the milk In portion^, at eight o'clock in the morning, and four in the afternoon. But whatever hours are 

 chosen to be set apart for feeding the calf, it is best to adhere to the particular times, as regularity is of 

 more consequence than many people think. If the calf go but an hour or two beyond his usual time of 

 feeding, he will find himself uneasy, and pine for food, it is always to be understood, that calves reared 

 in this manner are to be enticed to eat hay as early as possible; and the best way of doing this is to give 

 them the sweetest hay that can be got, and but little at a time. Turnips or potatoes are very good food, 

 as soon as they can be eaten by them ; and they are best cut small, and mixed with hay, oats, bran, and 

 such articles. It may be observed, that it is not absolutely necessary to give milk to calves after they are 

 one month old : to wean them gradually, two quarts of milk, with the addition of linseed boiled in water 

 to make a gruel, given together, will answer; and by diminishing the milk gradually, the calf will soon do 

 without it. Hay tea will do, with the like addition of two quarts of milk ; but it is not so nutritious as 

 linseed. It is a good method of making this, to put such a proportion of hay as will be necessary into a 

 tub, then to pour on a sufficient quantity of boiling water, covering up the vessel, and letting the water 

 remain long enough to extract the virtues of the hay. When bacon or pork is boiled, it is a good way to 

 preserve the liquor or broth, and mix it with milk for the calves. 



6856. In summer, calves may sometimes be reared on whey only ; but, when reared in winter, they must 

 be fed with hay ; and clover-hay is probably the best of any for this use. Calves may also be raised with 

 porridge of different kinds, without any mixture of milk. It is sometimes a good and convenient plan, the 

 author of the New Farmer's Calendar says, to bring up calves under a step-mother; an old cow, with a 

 tolerable stock of milk, will suckle two calves, or more, either turned off with her, or at home, keeping 

 them in good condition, until they are old enough to shift : they ought to suck the first of their mother's 

 milk for two or three days, although many are weaned without ever being suffered to suck at all. Calves, 

 whether rearing or fattening, should also always suck before milking, the cow being milked afterwards, 

 as the first and thinnest of the milk is sufficiently rich. Old milk will, perhaps, scour a very young calf; 

 but the effect will go off without any ill consequences. He observes, that the Duke of Northumberland's 

 recipe is to take one gallon of skimmed milk, and to about a pint of it add half an ounce of common treacle, 

 stirring it until it is well mixed ; then to take one ounce of linseed-oil cake, finely pulverised, and with 

 the hand let it fall gradually, in very small quantities, into the milk, stirring it in the mean time with 'a 

 spoon or ladle, until it be thoroughly incorporated ; then let the mixture be put into the other part of the 

 milk, and the whole be made nearly as warm as new milk when it is first taken from the cow ; and in 

 that state it is fit for use. The quantity of oil-cake powder may, from time to time, be increased as 

 occasion may require, and as the calf becomes inured to the flavour of it. Crook's method is to make a 

 jelly of one quart of linseed, boiled ten minutes in six quarts of water, which jelly is afterwards mixed 

 with a small quantity of the best hay tea. On this he rears many calves without milk : he thinks many 

 calves are annually lost by artificial rearing, and more brought up with poor and weak constitutions. 



6837. When calves are dropped during the grass season, Donaldson observes, they should be put into 

 some small home-close of sweet rich pasture after they are eight or ten days old, not only for the sake of 

 exercise, but also that they may the sooner take to the eating of grass. When they happen to be dropped 

 during winter, or before the return of the grass season, a little short soft hay or straw, or sliced turnips, 

 should be laid in the trough or stall before them. 



6838. Castration is performed both on male and female calves, when neither are intended for procre- 

 ation. On cow calves, however, it is generally omitted : but in Norfolk no distinction is made as to sex ; 

 males and females are equally objects of rearing, and are both occasionally subject to castration, it being 

 a prevailing custom to spay all heifers intended to be fatted at three years old ; but such as are intended 

 to be finished at two years old are, it is believed, pretty generally left " open ;" as are, of course, thote 

 intended for the dairy. There are two reasons for this practice : they are prevented from taking the bull 

 too early, and thereby frustrating the maio intention; and by this precaution may lie more quietly, and 

 are kept from roving at the time of fatting. This may be one reason why spayed heifers are thought to 

 fatten more kindly at three years old, and to be better fleshed, than open heifers. 



6839. The time'of perfm-ming the operation of castration in horned cattle, as in all kinds of live stock, \% 

 while the animals are yet very young, and just so strong as to endure this severe operation without any 

 great danger of its proving fatal. The males, accordingly, are cut commonly when about a month old, and 

 the females at the age of from < ne to three months ; but in Galloway, where more heifers are spayed than 

 perhaps in all the island besides, this is seldom done till they are about a year old. 



6840. The best time for rearing calves is the spring ; but that operation must depend in some degree 

 on the time when the calf was dropped. Such as are weaned during autumn or winter, however, seldom 

 do any good. At the season when the calf is weaned from the teat, it ought to be turned abroad, in the 

 day-time, into a small close or orchard near the yard where there is a good bite of grass, which may be 

 expected at the time of the year when the weaning-calves are of this age; and, as there will generally 

 be more than one calf weaned in a season, they will each be company for the other and become in a short 

 time reconciled to their situation. It is to be observed, that this pasture should be at seme distance from 

 that whereon the dams are turned, and that there be neither ponds nor ditches, nor any annoyance 

 which might endanger the lives of these youthful animals ; and, in order to habituate them still more 



