352 Best Means of Increasing the Home-Production of Beef. 
Burton-on-Trent. By reducing the sheep to a cattle standard — 
that is, allowing a certain number of sheep as being equal to one 
head of cattle — we found on some of the competing farms one 
head of cattle for each acre and a-half of the entire occupation. 
I need hardly say that, in addition to a large consumption of 
home-grown corn, the bill for purchased food was a heavy one ; 
nevertheless, the farms were being worked at a profit. 
No department of the farmer's business requires a greater 
amount of practical skill and constant supervision than the 
rearing of young stock ; the old adage, that the " master's eye 
grazes the ox," is a well-worn truism, never more true than 
when applied to the rearing of the young animal. There are 
many different systems of rearing, some of which are now obsolete. 
The milkmaid and the calf, one on each side of the cow, are no 
longer competitors for a share of the lacteal fluid ; nor is the calf 
allowed to suck at will, except in a few isolated cases, where the 
dam and offspring are confined in a yard or box, and finished 
for the butcher when the calf is from twelve to eighteen months 
old. The system of allowing the calves to run with and suck 
their dams until they were twelve months old resulted in 
making good yearlings, but at a cost that could not be tolerated 
in these days ; under this system the cows were erratic breeders, 
frequently producing only one calf in two years. During the 
great Shorthorn mania, it was a not uncommon practice to let 
the calf remain with the dam for many months. Successful 
stock-raisers now adopt a more rational principle : the calf is 
at once removed from the dam, and fed from the pail. The 
beastings, or first milk, possesses certain medicinal properties 
conducive to the health of the young animal ; hence this milk is 
used for the first few days. Some use new milk for the first 
three or four weeks, although this is not necessary. 
As regards stock-rearing, the mechanical separator »Js the 
great invention of the age. The new milk is passed through the 
separator immediately it is drawn from the cow. With the ex- 
ception of the butter-fat, nearly the whole of the original solids 
remain in the milk. Fats of an equally efficient and less costly 
character can be substituted, and may consist of linseed-meal 
and several crude oils of a cheap character. As the young 
animal increases in strength, a mixture of wheat, oat, and 
pea meal may be used with the milk. The success of rearing 
depends to a great extent on the care bestowed on the young 
animals: their food must be supplied at regular intervals, 
and, what is of the utmost importance, the milk must be fed at 
an uniform temperature — 80 degrees is the best. During 
separation the temperature will fall considerably ; it must then 
