82 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



and covered with soft and glossy hair, and the bone should not be 

 coarse. 



The form of a beast is a matter of primary importance. In the Short- 

 horn, the Hereford, and the improved Angus, we have this in perfec- 

 tion. The wide and level hips are accompanied by a massive loin and 

 deep, long, and square quarters. The springing ribs give to the body 

 nearly a vertical section. In a perfect beast the breast should stand 

 prominently out between the fore legs, coming down almost upon a 

 level with the knee-joint. Given a wide back and a good wide breast, 

 and most other good points are insured. When well fed the flank of 

 such a beast in handling appears to drop into the fingers. It will prove 

 to be a grazier's without, a butcher's within. 



In the matter of breeding for economical meat production, the cardi- 

 nal point to be kept in view is early maturity. Under present circum- 

 stances of farming, with higher rents than of yore, heavier expenditure 

 on labor, increased taxation, and a score of other ills to which farm- 

 ing is heir, early maturity in the animal and the production of the 

 largest amount of meat with the smallest amount of offal should be the 

 aim of the breeder and the grazier. Close observation will generally 

 convince us tha& most of our races of cattle and classes of sheep have 

 some peculiar properties which especially adapt them to the districts 

 in which they have been bred and grazed for generations. This fact 

 should not be lost sight of. But in selecting the improved breed of 

 each kind we obtain the best meat-producers. This remark applies to 

 cattle, to sheep, and to pigs alike. In such the active or even rest- 

 less habits of the original breeds have, by selection, regular atten- 

 tion, and good feeding, yielded to docility, or in some instances even 

 to a certain sluggishness highly fovorable to fattening. Easy access to 

 food has reduced the proportions of bone and muscle, so that a pure- 

 bred and a high-bred beast is often the best manufacturer of meat from 

 any given amount of fodder, roots, corn, and cake. The advantages of a 

 pure breed or a first-cross are numerous. There are few greater disap- 

 pointments than for a favorite cow to breed back. 



Age for breeding. Upon the most contested point of the earliest age 

 for breeding we have valuable opinions from many well-known author- 

 ities. Mr. Thomas Duckham, M. P., himself an eminent breeder and 

 exporter of Herefords, in a lecture given before the Brecoushire Cham- 

 ber, quoted the opinion of Dr. Hitchman, chairman of the Derbyshire 

 Agricultural Society, to the following effect : That the desire for pres- 

 ent advantage in breeding leads to great evils in the 'future. By 

 placing animals too young into breeding condition you tax nature too 

 heavily, and two evils ensue the parent is stunted, and the progeny is 

 smaller than it otherwise would be. When nature is busily employed 

 adding to the growth i. e., to the size and completion of every muscle, 

 bone, and viscera of the animal every particle that goes to the build- 

 ing up of the animal system being derived from the blood of that animal, 

 the blood being supplied with thotee materials exclusively from the food 

 which is taken into the stomach and digested, every organ of the body 

 (the stomach, the liver, lungs, heart, &c.), being taxed to the utmost to 

 fabricate the necessary materials for the growing muscles, ligaments, 

 and bones of the young animal, by causing this creation to be im- 

 pregnated at such an early period in its growth you call a new set of 

 organs and functions into activity j and, further, you call another 

 creature into existence, having like structures to be built up. But 

 while you do this you cannot add to the digestive or the assimilative 



