54 The Early Fattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
hen came to Europe GOO years B.C., with the gift of " ever-lasting " 
egg-laying, and with an extraordinary diversity in the colour of 
the plumage and in the size and character of the different 
breeds. 
It must be confessed that our cultivated breeds of animals 
and plants have been rendered unfit to cope with such com- 
petitors as they would meet with outside the boundaries of 
fields and farms. Few, if any, would survive when deprived 
of the protection of the hands that moulded them into the 
forms that most of them have assumed. Neither the horse 
nor our neat cattle are found in a wild state. Our sheep, with 
their " improved " fleeces, would be destroyed, without careful 
shepherding, by the attacks of parasites and flies. Our poor 
pigs have neither snout nor leg enough to hold their own in a 
wild state. 
It is certainly a considerable interference with Nature to 
hasten the maturity of animals and to induce their breeding at an 
earlier period, and yet this has been done for our advantage with 
most or all of our domestic animals without diminishing their 
constitutional power or lessening their average duration of life. 
It seems, then, illogical to imagine that the utmost limits of early 
maturity have been already reached. Professor G. T. Brown 
commenced an article on " Dentition as Indicative of the Age of 
the Animals of the Farm" (Journal, Vol. XVIII., 2nd Series, 1882) 
with these words : "Early maturity is a sine qwi non of breeders 
and exhibitors of farm stock ; and it is one of the objects of 
Agricultural Societies to encourage them in their efforts to pro- 
duce breeds which reach a state of perfect development at a 
comparatively youthful period." As something more remained 
to be done in 1882 in the attainment of earlier development, it 
cannot reasonably be urged that we have reached finality yet, 
since only a very little can possibly have been accomplished in 
so large a field within a period so short as eight years. 
As " the teeth " — quoting Professor J. B. Simonds (" On the 
Teeth of the Ox, Sheep, and Pigs, as Indicative of the Age of the 
Animal," Journal, Vol. XV., 1st Series, 1851) — " belong to the 
system of organs tei-med the digestive," it seems almost certain 
that the improved feeding as well as the superior breeding of 
domestic animals during the past 200 years must have hastened 
the development of their teeth. 
On this point Professor Simonds says that at three years and 
a quarter, " in animals of early maturity, the fourth pair of in- 
cisors will occupy the places of the temporary, and will thus 
complete the dentition of the ox." By far the larger number 
of oxen, Professor Simonds says, " will not put them up till 
