ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 201 



feeding is not an introduction of yesterday. The system has 

 been carried on for generations in many districts of England, 

 Wales, and even Scotland and Ireland, without it having been 

 found necessary to resort to such mutilations as dehorning, and 

 assuming that the wearing of horns is an object of obstruction 

 to court-feeding, the obvious advice would be to breed or pur- 

 chase only hornless cattle for feeding purposes — though that 

 advice would be difficult to follow if those many good qualities 

 which characterize some of our best breeds are to be retained. 

 While allowing that the practice is not wholly without warrant, 

 I am satisfied that in some instances dehorning is performed for 

 the purpose of palming off upon unwary and ignorant pur- 

 chasers artificial for natural "polls," and I am frequently told by 

 salesmen that they can get from ios. to £1 per head more for cat- 

 tle that have been dehorned than tor those that have not been sub- 

 jected to the process. Allowing that this is so, it does not 

 prove the necessity of performing the operation, since the 

 supposed benefits to be derived from it can be obtained by pain- 

 less and more simple methods ; but as some of these methods 

 involve the outlay of a little time and money and the adoption of a 

 little trouble, they are discarded by those to whom trouble is a 

 thing to be avoided. 



In all properly constructed farm buildings, erected for the 

 purpose of court-feeding, there is provided one or more (there 

 should never be less than two or three) separate courts in which 

 the weakly and the combative members (the " Boxers," as they 

 are called in Scotland) can be segregated; by this means the. 

 former are effectually protected from violence and a sufficient 

 supply of food insured, and the latter are rendered harmless. 



In the case of animals that have been reared together, even 

 such precautions as these are not usually necessary, as from 

 calf hood upwards the more vigorous or rather the more pug- 

 nacious animals will have secured the mastery, and the more 

 weakly will have learned to submit to a stronger force than that 

 which they themselves can wield; and be it observed here, it is 

 not always the animal with the sharpest or the longest horns. 



