532 = 266 
Practical Agriculture. 
housing, regular feeding, and a diet of roots and meals, with 
wash, skim-milk, butter-milk or whey — the roots much more 
frequently boiled or steamed than pulped, while it is usual 
where the meals, or a portion of them, are boiled, to finish off 
the fattening with raw meal. The varieties of practice in feeding 
pigs are innumerable. In some districts boiled potatoes and 
barley-meal are the principal food ; in others, milk-whey oi 
butter-milk, with brewer's grains, or a mixture of barley-meal, 
oatmeal, and Indian corn meal ; in some cases the animals are 
fed on peas, in other cases on buck-wheat. But it is generallv 
agreed that pig-feeding does not yield a profit except in the shape 
of the resulting manure. 
Note. — The management of Horses is described in the Chapter on " Motive Power.' 
CHAPTEE VI. 
Breeds of Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, and Horses. 
CATTLE. 
Shorthorns. SliOrtliorns. — This breed, one of the chief glories of Englisl 
agriculture, is the product of a hundred years of improvemen 
(indeed, it is exactly a century since " Hubback," the famous sin 
belonging to the Messrs. Collings, was calved), and originall' 
sprang from Yorkshire and Durham. It now distinguishe 
no particular counties ; for while in the north, in the east, am 
in the middle of England, it has displaced or amalgamated witl 
and improved other breeds, it has established itself in the soutl 
and west ; and it may now almost be said that other varieties o 
cattle hold their ground in excepted counties and districts wher 
Shorthorns do not prevail. There are some 700 or 800 pedigre 
herds in the kingdom ; probably as much as 2OO,O0OZ. worth o 
pedigree breeding stock is annually disposed of by public auctioi 
and private contract ; and high prices are given for bulls an( 
dams by breeders from all the countries of Europe, from ou 
colonies, and from America. 
Trices m:idc. Mr. John Thornton's ' Circular ; a Record of Shorthori 
Transactions,' gave a summary of sixty-four auction sales o 
187(5, in which 2802 head of bulls and females realise< 
145,055/., an average of 51Z. lOs. 8^/. per head. The list doe 
not include the Scotch or Irish draft sales of young bulls am 
heifers. It was about 800 head more than in any year bcfor 
1875 ; and for prices the sale season of 1870 was looked upoi 
as one of depression, the foreign market being very flat, espo 
