314 THE OX. 



He rears the cattle to the age which consists with the nature 

 of his farm, and then disposes of them to another class of 

 traders, who fit them for ultimate consumption. Vast num- 

 bers of cattle are reared in the mountainous and less fertile 

 districts and farms, and then transferred to the lower coun- 

 try and richer farms to be fattened for use. This species of 

 transfer is continually going on, and constitutes a great part 

 of the trade in cattle in the British Islands ; and much of the 

 profit of graziers and others depends on the skill with which, 

 on the one hand, the purchases are made, and, on the other, 

 on the manner in which the processes of grazing and fatten- 

 ing are carried on. The person who purchases lean stock 

 for fattening may often be better paid by the smaller cattle 

 than by the larger and finer ; that is, he may receive a larger 

 return from the capital laid out. But it were an error on 

 this account to say, that the one breed is equal or supe- 

 rior to the other. The value of a breed is not determined 

 by the profit which persons may obtain by purchasing, but 

 by the nett produce derived from the animals from the period 

 of birth to that of maturity. An Ox that, at the age of two 

 years' old, can be fattened to the weight of sixty stones and 

 upwards, like those of the Short-horned breed, is regarded 

 as a more valuable animal than one that would require three 

 or more years to be fattened to the same weight. The Angus 

 is a good breed, well adapted to the natural and acquired 

 fertility of a great tract of country ; but it cannot be brought 

 to the same weight of muscle, and degree of fatness, and in 

 the same period of time, as the Short-horns and Herefords. 

 The latter, therefore, form the more valuable breeds, in the 

 sense in which the term valuable is here employed. In like 

 manner, the Short-horned and Herefords are said to be supe- 

 rior in value as breeds to the West Highland, though the 

 latter is immeasurably superior to the others in adaptation 

 to the countries in which it is naturalized, and may be equally 

 a subject of profitable trade to the grazier and feeder. When 

 we employ the term valuable, then, in the abstract, with re- 



