188 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK i. 



" I buy the best Shorthorn calves I can get. The dealers in this 

 neighbourhood who collect calves from the West of England know when 

 they have got a * clipper ' where to take it, and they naturally require 

 a high price for such. But he must be a good one long, broad over 

 the loins, with a deep chest and full eye then if he is a dark roan, or 

 red, and has a clean ' sweet ' muzzle, he is appreciated. 



" I have tried Herefords, and can find no objection whatever to them. 

 They will come to maturity just as quickly ; and if I had as large a 

 number of Hereford calves to choose from as of Shorthorns I should 

 often take them, although I must confess to a secret leaning to the 

 graceful ' red, white, and roan.' I use no ' calf-food,' so called. 

 The calves are ' pailed ' at once with new milk ; sometimes diluted if 

 we are short, in which case a little linseed-cake dust is stirred in. 

 They learn to chew a piece of sweet meadow hay very soon, and lick a 

 little oatmeal, and shortly after amuse themselves by chewing some 

 sliced roots, which must never on any account be touched by frost. 

 They are always kept warm and in good condition. The losses are 

 very few, although I have in some years suffered by scour, arising 

 doubtless from change of food of the cows. During the present year 

 we have had no losses from this cause. 



" Calves weaned after June never leave the stalls and boxes till they 

 go, as bullocks, to the butcher. Those weaned early in the year run 

 in the paddocks all the summer, being carefully housed at night and 

 always having shelter from the rain or the heat of the sun. Under no 

 circumstances are they ever allowed to get into low condition ; their 

 diet is varied according to seasons and the crops grown. I have no 

 hard-and-fast rule of feeding, as I think it should be so elastic as to 

 accommodate itself to the farm produce of the day. From May to 

 October, when my stalls are generally quite full, green food of all 

 descriptions is brought to the cattle. The cost of labour is a conside- 

 ration, but must be borne. Trifolium, spring cabbage, tares (early and 

 late), and then, again, autumn cabbage and aftermath ,.of clover make 

 admirable feeding. The consumption of straw for litter in the summer 

 months is very slight. Bullocks do well on the bare floor, with a few 

 hedge-trimmings or other rubbish. No calves of mine are ever allowed 

 cotton-cake ; always the best linseed, from which the oil is not all 

 pressed out by the last new invention. I feed with good sweet barley 

 straw in preference to secondary hay, oatmeal, barley-meal, and last 

 season, when the root crop on my farm was a perfect failure, fed treacle, 

 with chopped hay and straw, and without any roots whatever. My 

 bullocks never came on quicker or better, teaching me plainly that 

 ' better no roots than too many.' 



" My experience has taught me that all animals intended for early 

 maturity must be kept gradually going on, and that this is the most 

 economical system of fattening. I have often turned out bullocks 

 under two years weighing their 120 stone, that never would eat over 

 3 Ib. of cake per day, although, of course, they had meal as well. But, 

 contrast this with the consumption of some of the raw-boned three- 

 year-old Irish steers, which on one or two occasions I have bought to 



