186 AGE OF THE DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



The other molars are between the inferior molars of the 

 horse and the molars of the dog in form. They wear by the 

 centre of the crown and have not the irregular asperities found 

 in the herbivora. They increase gradually in size from in front 

 to behind, and are larger in the upper jaw than in the lower. 



DETERMINATION OF AGE BY THE TEETH. 



To Dr. Olof Schwartzkopff I am indebted for the following: 

 " During the past few years many objections have been 

 raised, on the part of our practical breeders, to the correctness of 

 the older rules for recognizing the age of our domestic animals. 

 Several cases of an extraordinarily early development of the 

 dentition have been observed in fat-stock shows and other exhi- 

 bitions, and it has been alleged that modern feeding, with the 

 tendency to produce early maturity, results also in an earlier 

 shedding of the teeth. Not only in the United States have 

 these doubts been heard, but also in England and Germany. 

 In 1882 Prof. G. T. Brown published, in the Journal of the 

 Royal Agricultural Society of England, an article in which he 

 comes to the conclusion that, as a general thing, the views of the 

 breeders cannot be relied upon, and that the recognition of the 

 affe from the teeth is still the best and surest. In June, 1886, 

 the Executive Committee of the Fat-Stock Show at Berlin pre- 

 ferred similar complaints, and requested the jNIinister of Agri- 

 culture to introduce new experiments at the veterinary schools 

 and agricultural experiment-stations in Germany, to ascertain 

 whether the signs of age from dentition, sexual development, 

 and growth of horns can appear at an earlier time in our pre- 

 cocious breeds than hitherto believed. Accordingly, Prof. A. 

 Nehring, of Berlin, published, in the Landwirtschaftliche Jalir- 

 hucher of 1888, a series of new dentition tables for pigs, as a 

 result of his studies and investigations upon a collection of one 

 hundred and thirty-one skulls of different kinds of pigs, at the 

 Museum of the Royal Agricultural School at Bei'lin. 



" Having seen and examined parts of this collection, I will 



