202 VETEEINARY HYGIENE 



promotes a winter growth, and such meadows, though 

 furnishing hay of a poor kind, afford grazing to both sheep 

 and cattle at various times of the year. In seasons of 

 drought they are of the greatest value to the feeder of 

 stock. 



Water meadow grasses have also been estimated and 

 have been found to consist mainly of Yorkshire fog which 

 may form as much as 84 per cent, of the total, the 

 remainder being inferior grasses excepting Eye grass which 

 forms 12 per cent. 



GRAZING AND PASTURING. 



One of the most difficult problems in stock management 

 is the selection of store cattle, and the next difficult one is 

 to know how to graze them properly and to the best 

 advantage. 



Store cattle and sheep must be purchased suitable to the 

 class of pasture ; both the stock and pasture must suit 

 each other. To place poor animals on a rich pasture, or 

 big animals on a poor pasture, only means loss. Even 

 where the suitability of stock to pasture is ensured, yet the 

 grazier's watchful and trained eye is necessary, for the 

 turning of animals out to grass with the idea of fattening 

 them for sale is not as simple as it sounds. It is, indeed, 

 a question requiring years of experience, and an intimate 

 knowledge of cattle and pastures. There are certain 

 pastures which are of first-class or prime quality for cattle, 

 and others for sheep, and so well is this known that in 

 some parts of the country the two are kept quite separate. 

 Owing to the difference in their habit of grazing, that which 

 would be a first-class sheep pasture only becomes a second- 

 class pasture for cattle. Cattle which have not been starved 

 during the winter make the most remarkable improvement 

 when turned out to grass in the spring ; it is even said that 

 during the first four or five weeks they will add from one- 

 sixth to one-fifth increase in body weight as the result of 

 grazing. 



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