CATTLE: AGRIC. 



LIBRARY 



THEIR 



MANAGEMENT, TREATMENT, AND DISEASES. 



CHAPTER TV. 



HAVING thus detailed the principal breeds or varieties of the 

 British Ox, we may now proceed to some observations relative 

 to the management or treatment of horned cattle ; a subject 

 of great importance, inasmuch as their health, the quantity 

 and quality of milk yielded, and their quick ripening for the 

 butcher, are involved in it. The simplest and perhaps the 

 most economical mode of feeding cattle, is by grazing them in 

 fields or on commons, or uncultivated pastures ; additional 

 food and shelter being supplied during the winter. But there 

 must be a fitness of the cattle for the land. It ought to be 

 borne in mind, that a cow of large size, and high breed, would 

 starve, or become a miserable object, on poor, or peaty land, 

 where one of the small native kind, hardy and active, would 

 manage to keep herself in tolerable condition. Hence, the 

 cottager, or small dairy-farmer, in rude uncultivated districts, 

 will do wrong to exchange his hardy cows for others accus- 

 tomed to a rich pasturage : he would find the hope of deriving 

 from them the quantity of milk they yielded in their own 

 grounds, delusive ; for though his range of pasturage might 

 be very extensive, yet it would afford such cattle nothing like 

 sufficient nutriment ; and the very act of rambling about tQ&j 

 pick up what they could, would only increase their bad con*$ 

 dition. Cottagers often keep two or three cows, which they 

 usually turn out to feed on the grass, in lanes and by-roads, 

 attended during the day by a boy, and driven home at night. 

 They eke out the sustenance of these animals by cutting and 

 carrying the grass of banks, or by collecting the grass of 

 garden-lawns, mowed by the gardener ; and by purchasing, for 

 a trifle, the stains of persons who brew their own malt liquor. 

 Occasionally, within a few miles of London, we have seen such 

 cows in tolerable condition ; but in general their quantum of 

 diet is irregular ; and their angular points, and tight-bound 



, Mfrima-i 



