114 [Assembly 



cr. For the breeder, he is a ready sale, at high prices. For the 

 feeder, he fats easy, weighs heavy, sells quicker, and commands 

 a better price. And to the butcher, he affords more prime parts, 

 the grain of the meat is finer, cuts richly marbled, smaller bone, 

 and, best of all, aifords plenty of inside kidney and rough 

 fat. Such an animal will fatten on about iialf the feed that it 

 will take to keep an open coarse made one ; and when the coarse 

 animal is fattened, he is objectionable on account of the quantity 

 of coarse meat and bone, compared with his prime parts, and ne- 

 ver brings so good a price. In the few examinations I have had 

 the pleasure to attend, my attention has been drawn to the kind 

 of breed that will bring this sort of cattle. Generally it has 

 been about half Durham with good large natives of the place 

 where fattened. They appear to have done better, as it were, 

 on their own barn yards, tlian they would have done liad they 

 been strangers. 



I do not know that the following questions are important, but 

 they frequently arise in conversation and otherwise. As a dif- 

 ference of understanding prevails, it might be well to have them 

 definitely settled, viz: At what age shall a steer be called an 

 ox ? A heifer, a cow 1 And at what age shall a calf cease to be 

 called a calf 7 There may be some settled point on these sub- 

 jects, but I have never yet come across it. 



My own impression is that a steer ceases to be a steer after he 

 passes the age of four years ; because he is then fully developed, 

 and generally yoked and worked before that time, which soon 

 gives him the ox appearances. And a heifer, after she has had 

 a calf, ceases to be a iieifer, and becomes a cow, unless she has 

 been sj^ayed, or on arriving at the age of six years and upwards, 

 proves barren ; she is then called a free-martin, or barren cow. 

 The calf, when it passes one year, should, I think, be called a 

 yearling steer or heifer. Some are of opinion that it should 

 cease to be called a calf when it ceases to suckle ; but that pe- 

 riod is various ; I have known calves to suckle 21 months. 



Allow me to suggest to the Institute the propriety of offering 

 annually a premium on fat calves, say from four to ten weeks 

 old ; at that season they would find ready purchasers on the 



