The Early Patterning of Cattle and Sheep. 
03 
of mown seeds and sainfoin, 37 acres of fed seeds and sainfoin, 
152 acres of roots and rape, including G acres of mangel, 35 
acres of water-meadow, and 32 acres of down. The total breadth 
of common sainfoin is GO to 70 acres, and there is no kind of 
forage crop which is more esteemed on a Hampshire sheep-farm 
than sainfoin, which is held to be quite indispensable for its good 
hay and capital aftermath. The older layers of sainfoin are 
usually fed through the summer, and the younger and better 
planted are mown for hay. The aftermath is ready for folding 
in August, and will furnish " hearty " food till the end of 
November. In accordance with the Hampshire plan of pro- 
viding frequent chauges for the sheep, they are removed from 
their night's fold every morning to a fold of rape or turnips. 
The water-meadows afford the earliest fold in spring, and then 
follow in succession, through the summer, tares mixed with 
winter barley, rape, and seeds. It cannot be said that Mr. 
Barton's big, growing lambs weighing from 7 to 10 stone are 
stuffed with too much corn. Their early fattening is secured by 
skill in feeding with abundant forage of several kinds. The 
annual sale of 80 ram lambs on this farm shows the advance that 
has been already made in early maturity, and in producing lambs 
whose sires do not exceed twelve or fourteen months old. What 
the males do already, the females may accomplish by-and-by. 
Early fattening may be said to have now become mainly a 
question of feeding. I do not, of course, mean to assert that a 
slow breed can be fed up rapidly, but fairly good specimens of 
improved cattle can be fattened at eighteen or twenty months 
without difficulty. In fact, the examples given in the Journal, 
in 1878, in the article on "Early Fattening of Cattle," were 
not pure-bred animals, but the offspring of good dairy Short- 
horns and half-bred cattle of various kinds. 
Those who have not seen the official statistics relating to 
the Chicago Show, will be interested to learn that the highest 
rate of daily gain there, in the case of prize-winning animals, was 
made by a young Hereford of pure blood. The animal weighed 
920 lb., and was 350 days old, having gained 2-62 lb. daily. 
This may be compared with the weight of a Devon steer ex- 
hibited at Islington by Mr. John Walter, and weighing 809 lb. 
at 388 days old, having gained daily 2 '09 lb. — pretty well 
for a little Devon ! A champion prize-winner at Chicago, a 
Shorthorn 1,372 days old, had gained daily from birth T74 lb. 
After the Smithfield Club Show of last year some valuable 
information was obtained for the Live Stock Journal by Mr. G. 
T. Turner, who examined the carcasses of some of the sheep and 
cattle at the slaughter-houses, and saw them weighed. The 
