AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 49 



is most valuable for neat cattle in certain circumstances. 

 Mr. Bordley, (a celebrated American writer on Rural Eco- 

 nomy,) however, asserts that oxen made half fat, or in good 

 plight, on grass or turnips, are then finished, in France, upon 

 ^ sour food, prepared as follows : rye meal (buJc wheat or 

 Indian meal may be tried) with water is made into paste, 

 which in a few days ferments and becomes sour ; this is then 

 diluted with water, and thickened icith hay, cut into chaff, 

 which the oxen sometimes refuse the first day, but when dry 

 they drink and prefer it. All the husbandmen are decidedly 

 of opinion that they fatten much better because of the acidity. 

 They give it tiirice a day, and a large ox eats tv/enty-two 

 pounds a day. Maize [Indian] meal, or maize steeped till it 

 is sour, should be tried. This sour mess is given during the 

 last three weeks of their tattening, and they eat about seven 

 and a half bushels of meal, value four dollars. 



Care should be taken that the process of fermentation be 

 not Lcirried too far. The paste should not become mouldy, 

 nor the liquid food in the slightest degree putrid. We think, 

 moreover, that there is good reason for waiting till animals 

 become ' half fat,' or in good plight, before they are fed v*ath 

 acid food. Acids, like alcohol, create appetite by stimulat- 

 ing the stomach, but if long continued they weaken the di- 

 gestive powers, and in time entirely destroy the tone of the 

 stomach. The animal will then be visited with what in a 

 human subject would be called dyspepsia, or a want of the 

 power of digestion ; fattening him will be out of the ques- 

 tion, and he will be worth but little more than the value of 

 his hide. The constitution of an ox may be destroyed by 

 excessive eating, and it is only towards the close of his aays, 

 near the last stage of his preparation for the butcher, that 

 he should be allowed to become an epicure, and indulged 

 with as much as he can eat of rich and high seasoned food. 



Store keep should neither be too rich nor too abundant ; 

 and if an ox is once made fat and then loses his flesh, he is 

 like one of Pharaoh's lean kine, the more he devours the 

 leaner he becomes. If young cattle are kept in rich pastures 

 in summer and poor fodder in winter, sometimes stuffed, at 

 other times starved, tley lose their disposition to fatten. To 

 such cattle Mr. Lawrence alludes, when he says, ' It is ex- 

 tremely imprudent indolently to continue to keep at high 

 food animals which do not thrive ; I advert chiefly to in- 

 dividuals with which the first loss is always the least.' 

 * Stock cattle,' said Mr. Bordley, ' are kept^ others are fatten- 

 5 



