Practical Agriculture. 
hlb = 249 
1 corn-meal or barley-meal is about the best and cheapest cattle-food 
you can buy.' This he wrote to me last February, and what better com- 
ry could you have as to the soundness of Dr. Voelcker's advice than the 
of my previous year's feeding of the 14 beasts I have referred to ? 
'iiereisone verj' interesting and important fact I wish to bring before you 
• suit of the early feeding of these young beasts ; it is not an original 
; my own, but one that is too much overlooked, and tliat is, that the 
r a beast is fed, say up to two years old, the greater the average weight 
[ler week it will make, and the less food it will take to do it, than is the 
ith feeding older beasts ; and to illustrate this, I will give you the average 
L of the beasts exhibited at tlie last Bingley Hall Show, and compare 
J 1 with the weight of my 14. Now I do not make this comparison because 
I ink my beasts were as good or as well fed as those exhibited at the Show, 
1' liecause those weights were the only reliable ones I could get for com- 
1. In the youngest class of Shorthorn steers, not exceeding 3 years old, 
were 7 exhibited, and the average live-weight they made from the day of 
to the date of the Show was 13'76 lbs., per week ; the 10 in the class of 
iiorn heifers, not exceeding 4 years old, averaged 11 lbs. per week of live- 
t — less than the steers, you see, though heifers are supposed to feed faster ; 
in the class of Shorthorn steers exceeding 3 years, and not exceeding 
i ;ars old, averaged 11"9 lbs. per week of live-weight. So you see the 
v( igest class averages the greatest live-weight per week, and that you will 
' be the rule ; the older the beast, the less the average weight made per 
Now, my 14 beasts at 18 months and 1 week old averaged 13'5 lbs. 
ek, or only J lb. of live-weight less than the average of the heaviest 
lu the Show, and with how much less food consumed! And if with 
II urate feeding these animals attained so satisfactory a result at such an 
fia.' age, does it not show the loss of time, food, and money that must occur 
'lowing the ordinary system of feeding, that is, keeping beasts till thej' 
lad 4 years old, and then cramming them with more food than they can 
i, to ' finish them off ' as it is called ? " 
CHAPTEE IV. 
Management of the Flock. 
'ommencemmt of the Breeding Season. — It may be just worth Ewes lambing 
a mark that, by attention and high keep, the ewe will breed *'^'<=e in a ye.ir. 
tw e in a year, and that the practice of obtaining two crops of 
labs in a year for fattening was at one time known in Flanders, 
w also followed by some farmers on the Mendip Hills in 
Sciiersetshire, and even now occasionally happens among the 
D<set sheep. Instances are known of ewes lambing at Christmas, 
jai ning off their lambs by Lady-day, and producing lambs again 
in une ; of a ewe having lambed four times within 21 months ; 
an probably there are many examples of ewes dropping Iambs 
tw e in a year for two years successively. But no such strain 
1 the constitution of the ewe is either practically adopted 
ny district, or openly advocated as an advisable method of 
ising the supply of fat lambs or stock sheep. 
lie general practice of English flock-masters may be thus 
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