CATTLE. 11 



wise milking may become an unpleasant or even a painful 

 operation to her. If a cross-grained man or woman, with a 

 vinegar face, handles the teats roughly, and bullies a cow of 

 sensitiveness, she may refuse to let her milk flow, though she 

 would yield to the first touch of a good-tempered person. If 

 the udder be hard, it will require fomentation with lukewarm 

 water and gentle rubbing. It sometimes happens that the teats 

 become sore ; in this case an application of sweet oil, after 

 washing the affected part with soap and water, will probably 

 cure it. 



" A cow may be milked until within a month of calving, 

 provided the milk does not curdle on being slightly warmed, or 

 possess a salt taste ; either would be an indication that no more 

 milk should be taken." 



V. WEIGHT OF LIVE CATTLE. 



Experienced drovers and butchers are in the habit, in buy- 

 ing cattle, to estimate their weight on foot. Long experience 

 and much practice enables them to judge with considerable 

 accuracy. They thus have the advantage of the less experi- 

 enced farmer, who, for this reason, very often comes off 

 " second best" in a bargain. We recommend to them the 

 following rule, by means of which the weight of cattle may be 

 ascertained with a very close approach to the accuracy of the 

 scales. 



Rule. Take a string, put it around the breast, stand square 

 just behind the shoulder-blade, measure on a rule the feet and 

 inches the animal is in circumference ; this is called the girth; 

 then, with the string, measure from the bone of the tail which 

 plumbs the line with the hinder part of the buttock; direct 

 the line along the back to the forepart of the shoulder-blade ; 

 take the dimensions on the foot rule as before, which is the 

 length ; and work the figures in the following manner : Girth 

 of the animal, say 6 feet 4 inches, length 5 feet 3 inches, 

 which multiplied together, makes 31 square superficial feet, 

 and that multiplied by 23, the number of pounds allowed to 



