The Early Fattening of Cattle and Sheep. 
61 
milk is then gradually substituted for new, and for the next 
eight weeks they take about six quarts of it daily, mixed with 
2 lb. of oatmeal, or boiled linseed and oatmeal. During June, 
July, August, and September, they are put on a varied diet 
of mangel, hay, clover, and artificial grasses, with H lb. to 
2 lb. of linseed-cake, and the same of bean-meal. Then up 
to March, when they are about a year old, they get three- 
quarters of a bushel of roots, hay, and 4 lb. to 5 lb. of cake 
and meal daily. Then until they are fat, they get the same 
food as in the former year, but rather more of it, and rather 
more cake and meal. 
As for the demand for the young beef, one hears everywhere 
the same story — that old-fashioned feeders who have brought 
their prime, ripe, three-year-old bullocks to market, have found, 
to their disgust — especially in summer — that the young bullocks 
are much more saleable than their own, and fetch higher prices, 
small joints of beef being preferred to large ones. 
Ten years ago the marketing of young bullocks at sixteen to 
twenty months old was quite exceptional ; it is now a common 
jjractice, and early fattening has become a widespread system. 
One of the examples I wish to mention is the fattening of 
calves running with their mothers for a year. The calves were 
born in spring, summered with their mothers on rich grass, 
wintered with them, weaned, and then summered with cake to 
replace the milk. They received ^ake for four months only, and 
were killed at the respective ages of sixteen and seventeen 
months, weighing 74 stones (8 lb.), and 76 stones each. The 
carcasses of young bullocks fed in this way on grass and corn, 
and getting plenty of exercise, have proved excellent beef in 
every respect, with a good proportion of lean, even when the 
animals did not exceed fifteen months old. The pastures should 
be rich and cool, where flies are not troublesome. In the case 
just named, the grass consisted of a portion of Pevensey Marsh. 
In the case of those breeds which are least fitted for the 
dairy — Herefords, Devons, and Sussex — it is a common and 
profitable practice to fatten the offspring young, after several 
months' suckling. Mr. Richard S. Olver, of Trescowe, Corn- 
wall, a noted breeder of Herefords, does this. He maintains 
a herd of 150 Herefords, and breeds about forty-five calves 
yearly, keeping the best for bulls, and fattening the remainder, 
which are finished with cake on grass at two years old. He 
allows each cow to suckle her own calf, or sometimes two 
calves, for six or seven months. The heifers produce their 
first calves in summer at two and a half years old — a very early 
age from the physiologist's point of view. 
