708 = 442 
Pastoral Husbandry. 
however, many which, from want of breeding, from being half- 
starved in their youth, or from hardships incidental to travel bv 
rail and steamboat, and transit from one market to another, aro 
a long time after reaching the English feeder before they start 
to grow, and are unsatisfactory animals to feed. 
, In past years they have also been a fruitful vehicle of infectious 
disease, becoming contaminated on the journey ; and the vessel, 
railway-truck, or cattle-pen, when once infected, will taint each 
successive consignment of cattle. The Irish cattle are reared at 
a small cost as compared with our home-bred cattle ; the land 
is lower rented, and the winters are damp and mild, so that 
many of them are kept through the winter with little, if any, drv 
fodder. They are generally to be bought bigger for money than 
home-bred beasts ; and without a great change in our system, 
and a much larger breeding stock, they could not well he 
dispensed with. 
If a well-bred lot, not too low in condition, can be picked up 
they often do very well ; but rough coarse bullocks are difficull 
to feed. Some of these beasts are bought in the autumn, and 
wintered on straw and roots, with a little cake, or in grass-lanti 
districts on the grass, with a little fodder, and are fattened ir 
the early summer. Many more are brought over the Channe 
in the spring : being generally small beasts, a larger number o 
them may be kept on the land. 
Bullock Shorthorn bullocks, many of them reared further north, an 
teeding. grazed largely on the feeding pastures of Leicestershire, North 
amptonshire, and the adjoining counties. Bought at 2^ year 
old, they run in strawyards, having a few roots and a little caki 
during the winter ; they are pastured on the grass, generall; 
without cake, through the summer and autumn, and are thei 
put in boxes under cover, receiving roots and chopped straw 
and 10 lbs. to 15 lbs. daily of cake or meal. 
The great object of this winter box-feeding is to convert th 
straw into good manure, and for the winter feeding not muc! 
more money is often realised than the cost of the cake and meaj^ 
consumed. Bullocks, very well bred and well kept from birtb" 
will fatten at an early age; but, generally speaking, bullock 
require a deal of time, and bullock grazing cannot compare i 
point of profit with the grazing of good cows or heifers, draft 
from the dairy. Black Longhorned Welsh cattle are brought i 
considerable numbers at three and four years old into Englan 
to fatten : reared on the Welsh hills, they are somewhat sloi 
feeders ; but, when fully ripe, the best of them are prime bee 
much prized in the London and other markets. 
The Heicforil The Herefords arc a very fine breed of cattle for be( 
breed of cattle. pyj.pyggg^ their meat being particularly tender, juicy, and fin 
