156 RAISING CALVES. LOCAL PRACTICES. 



future capacities of the animal, and these should be 

 studied. 



If we except the manure of young stock, the calf is 

 the first product of the cow, and as such demands our 

 attention, whether it is to be raised or hurried off to 

 the shambles. The practice adopted in raising calves 

 differs widely in different sections of the country, being 

 governed very much by local circumstances, as the 

 vicinity of a milk-market, the value of milk for the 

 dair} r , the object of breeding, whether mainly for beef, 

 for work, or for the dairy, etc. ; but, in general, it may 

 be said that, within the range of thirty or forty miles 

 of good veal-markets, which large towns furnish, com- 

 paratively few are raised at all. Most of them are 

 fatted and sold at ages varying from three to eight or 

 ten weeks ; and in milk-dairies still nearer large towns 

 and cities they are often hurried off at one or two 

 days, or, at most, a week old. In both of these cases, 

 as long as the calf is kept it is generally allowed to 

 suckle the cow, and, as the treatment is very simple, there 

 is nothing which particularly calls for remark, unless 

 it be to condemn the practice entirely, on the ground 

 that there is a more profitable way even for fattening 

 calves for the butcher, and to say that allowing the calf 

 to suck the cow at all is objectionable on the score of 

 economy, except in cases where it is rendered neces- 

 sary by the hard and swollen condition of the udder. 



If the calf is so soon to be taken away, I should pre- 

 fer not to suffer the cow to become attached to it at 

 all, since she is apt to withhold her milk when it is 

 removed, and a loss is sustained. The farmer will be 

 governed by the question of profit, whatever course it 

 is proposed to adopt. In raising blood stock, however, 

 or in raising beef cattle, without any regard to economy 

 of milk, the system of suckling the calves, or letting 



