170 Cattle Problems. 



muscular parts. This fact is observed every day, and at 

 every turn, in all parts of the country ; and horses are 

 specially exercised by all good horse-breeders. Colts 

 grow as rapidly in winter, in many cases, as in summer; 

 growing all the year round, when they have as much or 

 more exercise in winter than in summer. 



What is the reason of this anomalous exception, in de- 

 veloping muscle by exercise in horses, and refusing exer- 

 cise to cattle,* so preventiflg their developing muscle, or 

 even maintaining what they may happen to have, at the 

 end of each grazing season ? Is it only because the horse 

 is the better animal for the saddle or the carriage? What- 

 ever be the cause, we are confident that the special exer- 

 cise in the dry-feed season, and exercise at all seasons of 

 the year, is as necessary for cattle and swine as for horses; 

 and that such exercise, by developing or maintaining a 

 fair proportion of muscle, would increase the nutritive 

 food-value, and consequently the money value, of both 

 cattle and hogs to about the same extent that, their muscle 

 or the nutritive flesh is increased, by increase of exercise 

 and digestion, and resulting muscular proportion. The 

 queer feature about this anomaly is : The same men who see 

 their horses sweating because developing heat too fast by 

 activity, will frequently carry water to their cattle that are 

 housed, to prevent exercise, for fear of chilling their cattle 

 by exposure to cold ! They do not exercise their cattle to 

 develop heat by activity, because the cattle shiver in the 

 cold, showing very clearly that they develop too small a 

 quantity of heat, because they get far less exercise than 

 they urgently need. In such cases active exercise, by de- 

 veloping latent heat into active blood-heat, would prevent 

 either cattle or hogs from chilling, or becoming tender, or 



*"Deficiency of exercise often lends to fatty clpscncriition of the heart, with 

 loss of power and dfiaiigumuiit of the circiilutiuii."— llu.xley and YouDiaub' 

 Physi., p. 4*7 



