On Weighing Live-Stock. 
453 
We have damp wheat, rough wheat, smutty wheat, on offer, 
as we have rough beasts, lean beasts, scalawags, stags, bulls. 
Even age enters into the consideration of value alike in 
both commodities. Old wheat and old mutton are in higher 
estimation than new wheat and young mutton. 
But none of these factors of value are allowed to impede the 
sale of grain by " live "-weight. Why then should they be 
allowed to operate against the universal sale of beef by live- 
weight ? It is for the supporters of the unmethodical specula- 
tive system to find the answer, and demonstrate the worthless- 
ness of the motto of this Society, " Practice with Science." 
The first word, however, in our motto gives rise to some re- 
flection on the attitude of owners of land in this matter. How 
far are they (members probably of this Royal Society) backing 
up the motto with their own practice ? Nothing but practice in 
the new method or system in England of weighing live cattle 
can develop it into full usefulness, and this practice cannot be 
obtained without appliances. The absence of these appliances 
as part of the necessary equipment of large agricultural estates 
or holdings is of serious importance, and may be justly de- 
plored. There is no lack of worthless implements overgrown 
with nettles or stored in out-of-the-way corners — implements 
whose character for efficiency has been bolstered up by testimo- 
nials, florid illustrations, and fine phrases, ad navseam — but the 
one apparatus whose performances have been of proved value 
and universal use among people emerged from barbarism, finds 
its representative inside the offices only of the landowner, 
weighing his butter, and his coal, and his stable fodder, his 
letters and his physic, but excluded, though its cost is moderate, 
from a sphere of action, outside the purlieus of the mansion, con- 
ducive to economy and instruction. There is the estate office 
with its staff" of clerks and books ready at hand ; and while all 
difficulty in drawing up tabular statements is thus removed, the 
gauge of the feeding quality of every field, all farm produce, and 
of every description of artificial food is wanting so long as the 
weighbridge for live-stock is not in its place. 
The missing link in investigation would be supplied if the 
live-weight scales were periodically called upon to declare the 
progress of the animals on the farm, and its revelations entered 
up in the office books. In this age of fierce competition we can 
hardly afford to neglect any educational opportunities. The 
whole world, as it has poured its grain into England, seems on 
the eve of following suit in live animals, with the certainty of a 
rivalry in which that party must go down which neglects 
exactitude in its business practices and the adoption of the 
