The Early Fattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
47 
I have only attempted to review the Reports of those European 
countries which are in immediate contact, as it were, with our 
own, and where agriculture is carried on to some extent under 
similar conditions, where the soil has been worked for ages, and 
in which no special advantages of climate or natural fertility 
accrue to the cultivator. In the Reports on all these countries 
allusion is made to the same pressure that we ourselves experience 
from severe competition. These agriculturists as well as ourselves 
feel what advantages the virgin soils of the West and the newly- 
developed wheat-lands of the East possess. Laborious and 
skilful as the farmers of some of these countries have always 
been, they know that if they are to hold their own in the 
markets of the world, they must endeavour not only to produce 
a greater amount of grain and meat from the land which they 
cultivate, but that they must do this by improved processes, and 
cheaper methods of production. For these reasons they welcome 
the teaching of science ; and when the agriculturists see the 
marvellous progress which has been made in other industries by 
the use of brains as well as hands, they also ask that some por- 
tion of the endowments of old time, or aid from the general 
revenues of the State, may be furnished to further develop 
the teaching of modern discoveries in the most ancient art of 
the world. I gather from these Reports that British agi'icul- 
turists must not look to State aid or State teaching as the only, 
or even as the primary, force in agricultural education. They 
may, however, expect that in agriculture, as in other branches 
of knowledge, the State may exercise some superintendence and 
authority as to the methods of teaching, and may supply some 
assistance towards the attainment of a more scientific knowledo-e 
of the art which they practise. John Dent Dent 
THE EARLY FATTENING OF CATTLE 
AND SHEEP. 
The sheep and cattle of three hundred years ago were diminutive 
compared with our present breeds, and the sheep were, as 
Mr. Youatt remarks, " strangely " so, since they were not bred 
for the carcass as well as the fleece, but almost exclusively for 
the latter. The English people of Henry VIII. 's time were 
strangers to beef and mutton. In 1531 the latter was so little 
appreciated, that its price was only three farthings per pound. 
Reef was twice as dear, but its use was confined to the summer 
