CHAP. vi. REARING OF CALVES. 133 



most important when nothing except the natural food of new milk is 

 given. But where, from the milk being supplemented by other articles, 

 a mixed diet is given, care and attention at every stage are of ex- 

 ceptional moment. If the ingredients are not used in the proper 

 proportions ; if the constituents are not evenly mixed ; if the right 

 quantity is not given to each calf or at the proper temperature, when 

 some of these all-important conditions are not complied with, and 

 especially when all of them are neglected, the results cannot but be 

 unsatisfactory. There is an old and a true saying to the effect that 

 nothing conduces so much to the thriving of a horse as the watchful 

 eye of the master, and in no department of farming does this principle 

 hold good in a greater degree than in calf-rearing. Constant super- 

 vision on the part of the farmer or some member of his family is simply 

 invaluable. Old and reliable servants are occasionally found who 

 could not be surpassed in this sphere of labour. Where such hired 

 helps are not available, and members of the family are in the habit of 

 taking their share in the work of the farm, by all means let them not 

 consider it beneath their dignity to at least superintend the upbringing 

 of the youthful bovine stock of the farm. 



" Calf-rearing can never be said to be successfully prosecuted if the 

 calves are not kept in a healthy, growing, progressive state. To rear 

 calves and starve them is the worst possible policy. In former times 

 when cattle were very slowly brought to maturity, it was considered 

 good management to keep them on very short commons in the earlier 

 months of their existence. And possibly, in view of the poor keep 

 allowed them afterwards, liberal treatment at first would have been 

 thrown away to some extent. But nowadays stock-owners are becom- 

 ing more alive to the importance and profit of keeping animals, that 

 are intended for beef, well at every stage of their existence. Early 

 maturity is what is now aimed at by all enlightened and enterprising 

 farmers, and it goes without saying that this can only be secured where 

 the beast is kept on a liberal diet from the very first. Indeed it is the 

 truest economy to feed the young calf well. It will make more rapid 

 progress on less food at that stage, when its powers of consumption are 

 necessarily small, than a year or two later when its capacity of con- 

 suming food has been greatly increased. 



" The most ancient, and, some say, the most successful method, is 

 to allow the calf to run with its dam and be suckled by it. In ordinary 

 circumstances year by year with cows, this plan cannot be commended 

 as a remunerative one. Where the cow supports only her own offspring, 

 the calf is had at weaning-time at the cost of a year's keep of a cow, 

 which is certainly a high price to pay for a six or seven months' old 

 beef animal. The only recommendation in its favour is, that it reduces 

 the labour bill to a minimum ; but even with every weight that can be 

 attached to that consideration, this must be pronounced an extravagant 

 system of calf-rearing. The case is somewhat changed where a couple 

 of calves are reared by one cow. Where the dams are of fairly good 

 milking strains this is quite practicable, and, indeed, in not a few cases 

 it is followed with results that cannot be considered altogether unsatis- 



