154 
Early Fattening of Cattle, 
to let the animals continually outgrow their food, pushing them 
on rapidly the last three months, and finishing at something 
under two years old. I may here note that the calves get 
daily, at six months old and until ten months old, 1;^ lb. linseed- 
cake, 1 lb. bean-meal, 2 gallons grains, 1 gallon mangold, and 
5 lbs. hay. The cost of this, with labour and with a proper 
deduction for the value of the manure, is about 3s. 6rf. a week. 
Each cow rears five calves. 
From the first, Mr. Stanford's calves never quit their sheds 
until removed by the butcher. The reasons for this treatment 
will be given by and by ; meanwhile, although the knack of 
rearing calves without loss can hardly be imparted by written 
directions, the reader may like to hear, at this stage, what other 
breeders have said on the subject. 
Mr. William T. Carrington, of Croxton Abbey, Staffordshire, 
a dairy farmer with 100 cows, who enjoys a well-deserved 
reputation for successful stock management, has lately given 
his experience in the management of dairy-cattle. He says : — 
" It is my practice to rear nearly 40 of my earliest heifer calves. They 
are not allowed to suck their dams ; they have from 4 quarts to 8 quarts of 
new milk per day, according to age, from three or four weeks. They are 
then fed with skim-milk, thickened with boiled linseed or oatmeal, and are 
taught as soon as possible to eat hay and a small quantity of linseed-cake. 
They are allowed to run out on a grass-field in May and June, and are after 
then generally left out altogether, with a shed to run into in very wet 
weather, or to avoid the heat of the sun and the teasing of flies. The wet- 
nursing is generally discontinued when they are about four months old. They 
are, however, supplied with about 1 lb. each per day of linseed-cake all 
through the year. 
" In order to have all the milk available for cheese-making we have 
hitherto often fed the calves, when taken from new milk, with whey thick- 
ened with meal. 
" Skim-milk is a much safer food, and now that cheese sells at a good 
price, it will never answer to keep sufficient milk for the calves out of the 
cheese-kettle. In the spring, calves are generally very plentiful in this dis- 
trict, as dairying is the principal farming business, bull calves are therefore 
generally sold at a low price. 
" Having a considerable local reputation for breeding good stock, I am 
able to sell mine at a fair price — selected ones for being reared by r^pighbour- 
ing dairy farmers for stock ])urposes, and the remainder .to be reared as 
bullocks. I send many of them, at a week old, tied up in bags, packed 
with straw, leaving the head at liberty, per passenger van, into districts where 
calves are scarce. They travel quickly and safely, at a moderate cost. 1 am 
now using only first-class pm'e-bred bulls of registered jiedigree. 
" Those who rear bullocks cannot be too particular in getting the calves 
of the best possible quality. A coarse ill-bred bullock is a very iinprofitablc 
animal either to rear or feed." 
The same principle of management is elsewhere observed. 
Mr. Thomas J. Scott, of Stretton Baskerville, Hinckley, 
showed me a dairy of cows from whose milk was made some of 
