8 



gacious Roman, was asked what was the most assured 

 profit rising out of land, made this answer : " To feed 

 stock well." Being asked again what was the next, he 

 answered to feed with moderation ; and we can easily im- 

 agine the contrast which exists between that aboriginal 

 production of food which the sinewy savage practices as 

 he pursues the still more sinewy cattle across the plain, 

 and even the first dawn of domestication in the manage- 

 ment of animals, and the still greater contrast which ex- 

 ists between the wild and flying drover of the pampas, 

 and that calm, and solid, and imperturbable specimen of 

 humanity, who wends his placid way from the valley of 

 the Tees to Smithfield market, realizing, as he follows his 

 rolling and wallowing Short-horns, the truth of the saying, 



" Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." 



There is a long interval between "the 500 yoke of oxen" 

 of Job and the stupendous beeves which graze upon the 

 fat pastures of England, bred and reared b} 7 rule into an 

 exact estimate of the cost of each "pound of flesh; " and 

 to us who are engaged in farming among all the modern 

 improvements, it is a matter of special interest to know 

 the processes by which the present breeds and races of 

 cattle have been brought to their existing perfection, and 

 how they can be preserved in their best condition. An 

 Ayrshire cow and a Short-horn bullock are by no means 

 the result of accident. They have been produced by the 

 application of the highest and the most intelligent skill, 

 at the hands of the Bakewells, and Parkeses, and Michles, 

 and Collings, under whose treatment, as has been truly 

 said, " the long-legged, slab-sided, ill-bred oxen are met- 

 amorphosed into small-boned, quick-fattening Devons and 



