61 



paid for the food they consumed. I make them thick 

 fat along 1 their backs, and as their bellies came to be very 

 near to the ground, they no doubt produced un extraordi- 

 nary quantity of inside fat. The London butchers 

 therefore made no complaint ; but I am doubtful if their 

 customers might not complain of the hardness of the meat. 

 I heard a person say, whom I have ever deemed a good 

 judge of eatables, that the best beef he ever ate was of a 

 cow of his, that he knew to be twenty-two years old. From 

 four to six years, I should think the best beef. In the 

 breeding counties, an ox is very seldom killed ; the beef 

 there, is generally either heifer, two or three years old, or old 

 cow ; therefore is seldom prime meat. The best beef to be 

 met with in England, or I conclude 1 may say in the world, 

 is in London ; but there also is sent the worst meat that the 

 country produces.* 



GRAINS are better food for cattle than for pigs, which 

 swallow them without mastication, and thus the nourish- 

 ment in them is not extracted, as it is by ruminating 

 animals. Grains from private brewing are best, as they 

 have more goodness left in them than those from public 

 breweries. Cattle in the stalls cannot be fed quicker or 

 cheaper than with distiller's wash and grains ; but the fat 

 part of the meat is generally high coloured, and does not 

 become firm. 



After having written thus much of my little pamphlet, I 

 met with a letter of mine, on the Breeding of Cattle, and 

 Cattle Shows, dated September 25, 1826, which appeared 

 in the " Northampton Mercury," and of which I am 

 induced to give a copy herein : 



" TO THE PRINTERS OF THE NORTHAMPTON MERCURY. 



SIRS, I do not hesitate to reply to the letter addressed to me in 

 your last week's Paper, although it is from an anonymous Writer ; and 

 will herein state the arguments I made use of at the annual dinner of 

 the Farming and Grazing Society, held at the George Inn, Northampton. 



* It is very difficult to describe that sort of touch a beast's skin should 

 have, which denotes what is called " good handling.'' The nearest thing I 

 can compare it to, is, passing the fingers over Indian-rubber. 



