106 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK i. 



cows, and especially is this practice injurious to young bulls, often 

 spoiling their tempers, besides doing them other harm ; wherever the 

 situation can b) r any means be made to admit of its being avoided, this 

 should never be permitted. As it is desirable at times for the bull to 

 have exercise, he should be allowed a loose box when young, and should 

 be regularly rubbed down every day, as that conduces to health, and as 

 he gets older he should be led out occasionally. The temper of the 

 animal much depends upon the treatment he receives, nevertheless 

 some bulls are naturally far more vicious than others. 



As much, if not more, attention should be paid to the size and 

 qualities of the family of the male as to those possessed by himself. 

 Many a small bull, if well descended, will produce finer stock than a 

 heavier animal whose pedigree is not so good. Particularly in a dairy 

 herd, there are good grounds for the assertion that the milking pro- 

 pensity is qiiite as transmissible through the male as through the 

 female line, arid in view of the large number of offspring of one bull as 

 compared with those of one cow, it is argued that the milking aptitude 

 is preferably propagated through the male. Bulls of good dairy charac- 

 ter are distinguished by the possession of fairly developed teats. A 

 male should not be hastily rejected ; some graziers fatten and slaughter 

 a bull after he is two and a half or three years old, and before his capabili- 

 ties as a stock-getter can possibly have been sufficiently tested. Others, 

 on the contraiy, going to the opposite extreme, will rear and breed 

 from bulls got by inferior parents, and which are themselves very 

 mediocre animals. 



In dealing with this subject, Mr. Gilbert Murray (Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society, vol. i., Third Series, 1890), has the 

 following pertinent observations : 



" Soil and climate to a considerable extent fix the habitat of the 

 different races of our domesticated animals. Whatever the breed, the 

 first stage of improvement must begin with the male, and to this end it 

 is essential that pure-bred sires be used. I have known many instances, 

 in the dairy-districts, of well-bred Shorthorn bulls being used for a 

 few years ; then, on the mistaken notion of a narrow-minded economy, 

 a bull-calf is saved from a favourite cow, and eventually used in the 

 herd, which soon reverts to its original state. To a tenant-farmer of 

 ordinary intelligence, I cannot conceive a more interesting and profit- 

 able branch of his calling than that of building up a herd of milking- 

 cows, let the breed be what it may. Throughout the dairy districts of 

 the Midlands we pin our faith to what is generally known as the home- 

 bred, or Yorkshire Shorthorn, which for the general purpose of the 

 locality cannot be excelled. 



" Commencing with well-selected cows or heifers of unrecorded 

 pedigree, on which is used a pedigree bull, it is surprising what im- 

 provement can be made in a few generations. The ordinary dairy- 

 farmer, as a rule, has a horror of pedigree ; and yet, at the deplenish- 

 ing farm sales, hair, colour, and quality invariably induce competition; 

 this year I have known unpedigreed yearling heifers make up to 16 

 each. A dairy-farmer should keep a separate milk record of every cow 



