452 FATTENING. 



green forage at too low a rate, and that \<'hru cattle are upon wet 

 clover or lucern, they are in fact much moie effectually nourished 

 than under ordinary circumstances. 



If it be true, as it evidently is, that the quantity of milk produced 

 depends especially upon the absolute quantity of nutritive food con- 

 sumed, it is not so with the quality of the fluid. It is undeniable, 

 that the milk of spring and summer, formed upon green and succu- 

 lent food, is much more palatable than that of the winter season ; 

 the butter is also much finer and better flavored. The green herbs 

 of our pastures undoubtedly contain volatile principles which are 

 dissipated and lost in the processes of drying and fermentation 

 which they undergo in their conversion into hay. If chemistry- be 

 powerless 'in seizing such principles, it still informs us of the possi- 

 bility of introducing a variety of articles into the food of cows 

 which have the property of communicating those qualities which 

 we prize in milk. In all grazing countries certain vegetables are 

 pointed out as giving, in the vulgar opinion, a particular aroma to 

 the flavor of milk. 



§ III. FATTENING OF CATTLE. 



Under a parity of circumstances, feeding cattle for the butcher 

 may occasionally be found more advantageous than the dairy to the 

 farmer. In feeding for the market there is, in the first place, a 

 quicker return for the outlay than in keeping milch-kine through 

 the whole of the year. In the first operation, the capital is realized 

 at the end of four or five months ; that which is employed in produ- 

 cing milk, and butter, and cheese, is always lying out like a sum at 

 interest. 



The quantity of food requisite to bring cattle intended for the 

 butcher into condition, does not vary less than that which is required 

 to secure a plentiful production of milk. Thus the stature, the age, 

 the race of the individual, and the relative proportions of flesh and 

 fat which we would have laid on, all imply varied doles of various 

 kinds of forage. The age in especial has to be considered ; for in 

 putting up a young animal to fatten, we have both flesh and fat to 

 form. This is what always occurs in the fattening of oxen of two 

 years old, and of pigs of ten or eleven months. The increase in 

 living weight experienced at various ages, is not equally owing to 

 accumulation of fat ; this indeed may be so in the case of beasts, 

 the muscular system of which ha« already attained complete devel- 

 opment, but it is otherwise with young and still growing animals. 



Practice does much in enabling us to select the animals that will 

 fatten readily. In a general way it is well to choose yomi^ animals 

 that have a large chest, the body bulky and rounded, the ribs finely 

 arched, the bones small, the limbs short, the neck thick for its 

 length, the skin soft, pliant, velvetv to the touch, and moveable over 

 the body, particularly over the ribs, the tail should be scanty, the 

 buttocks not deeply cleft, but fleshy — well breeched, as the phrase 

 runs in some districts. The look of the animal should be sharp 



