The Marty Fattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
57 
with them. Groat care should be exercised as to generous feeding during the 
next winter, as the system has a considerable strain upon it. The failing grass 
should be supplemented in good time by a mixture of cotton and linseed cake, 
say, 3 lb. daily : and this should be continued throughout the winter and up 
to calving, with a liberal supply of roots and chaff given. In this way there 
need be no check whatever in growth. . . . "We are satisfied that, if we have 
suitable conditions and judicious management, it is both possible and profit- 
able to develop early maturity as regards breeding cattle ; and that, if this 
were more generally followed, more profitable stock could be kept and ex- 
penses be reduced." 
As the early fattening of recent times has naturally followed 
closely in the wake of the earlier maturity which many genera- 
tions of breeders have been aiming at, it seemed necessary, even 
in a merely practical article, to state the theory and explain the 
practice of those who believe that further advances are possible. 
Having quoted Mr. Coleman on neat cattle, I will now 
give the views of Mr. Alfred de Mornay as to sheep. Mr. de 
Mornay's idea, founded on Darwinian principles, is to train the 
ewe lambs to early-breeding propensities, and this he does by 
selecting for his first experiment the most forward and matured 
animals he can find in his flock, mating them with a lamb which 
is himself as matured as possible, and out of a flock where early 
development has been encouraged to the utmost. He then makes 
a careful selection of the produce, using only the forwardest 
lambs, until, by degrees, the habit of early breeding becomes 
established. It is, of course, necessary to supply the young ewes 
with abundant and proper food, in order that the foetus may be 
properly supported without too great a strain on the parent, 
and since Mr. de Mornay obtains four crops of lambs in four 
years instead of three, the "extra cost can be well afforded. 
It is only within a comparatively few years that ram lambs 
have become sufficiently precocious to come into use at the age 
of eight or nine months ; and if the propensity to mature 
early can be fixed as a permanent characteristic of a flock, 
there seems no reason why the ewe lambs should not partake 
of it as well as the ram lambs. It only requires that their 
frames should have become fully developed by the time the tup 
is put to them ; and if it is possible to breed wether lambs to 
reach the weight and size of ordinary two-teeth sheep at eight 
or nine months of age, I do not see why the ewe lambs could 
not be made to complete their development in the same time. 
Mr. de Mornay's farm is a suitable one for his purpose, having 
a good dry soil in a favourable climate. 
, The practice of early fattening is only suited to animals 
whose breed and treatment have prepared them for fast feeding. 
Alternate fattening and starving is always bad management for an 
