SOUTH AFRICA 249 



" Heifers are mated usually about twenty months to two 

 years old, according to size, it having been found that to allow 

 them to go any longer engenders barrenness, owing to their 

 being too fat to settle to the bull. Taking the average, the per- 

 centage of calves per annum, or the breeding efficiency of the 

 herd, is in the neighbourhood of 60 to 65 per centum. As 

 stated above, calves are dropped every month. It has been 

 observed that those calves born in the dry winter months are 

 slower in maturing. It is a matter for consideration whether 

 the additional expense for bulls and the risk incurred in having 

 a definite breeding season would be entirely counterbalanced 

 by the admittedly greater uniformity of the young stock which 

 would ensue. Calves are weaned usually at ten months, or 

 younger. Bull calves are castrated at from three to ten 

 days old. Weaners are run well towards the outskirts of the 

 ranch, and after a year those heifers of satisfactory size are 

 returned to one of the breeding herds. Oxen are drafted on 

 to good rearing veld at nine months, well away from the centre 

 of the ranch, where they grow out, and, when about three years 

 of age, drafts of oxen are taken on to the best veld and given 

 some months in which to finish. 



" The oxen reared on the ranch are large, of a desirable beef 

 type, though somewhat long in the leg, and, perhaps, rather 

 coarse in the front ; they are weighty and otherwise of good 

 conformation, and dress out well at slaughter. 



" The following particulars of oxen from the ranch at four 

 years, exhibited at the agricultural show at Johannesburg on 

 the 6th to 9th April, 1915, and slaughtered at the municipal 

 abattoirs, may be of interest. It may be mentioned that these 

 oxen were retained at the ranch as not being good enough to 

 go forward with the consignments about four months earlier, 

 and consequently they are a little older than the average : — 



