76 
Hereditary Diseases of Cattle. 
lialter or rein at one side instead, they soon found that their 
liorses were not a whit less manageable without bearing-reins, 
and that they did their work with I'ar greater ease to themselves. 
A great friend of ours, who has turned the sword of a dragoon 
into a ploughshare, and has paid great and successful attention 
to farming affairs, gives it as his opinion that " a pair of horses, 
when freed from this useless tackle and left to step in freedom, 
would plough l-4th if not l-3rd more land in a day, and with 
greater ease to themselves and less fatigue when the day's work 
was over, than when confined in their action by bearing-reins." 
It docs appear not a little desirable that improvements should 
be made generally in our team-harness, so tliat all unnecessary 
weight and useless gear, bearing-reins, &c., should be got rid of ; 
and perhaps if the Royal Agricultural Society were to offer a 
prize for improved harness, and give the sanction of its authority 
to some improved type, we might hope to see ere long a great 
and beneficial change in this respect. Change is by no means 
desirable for its own sake, but the change from a bad system to 
a good one — from a bad to a good implement — cannot be other- 
wise than advantageous to the community ; and it is only by 
observing and obeying nature's laws that we can hit upon im- 
provements which may be real and lasting, whether in mechanical 
appliances for ploughs, carts, and harness, or with respect to the 
practical details of scientific cultivation, or the condition and 
household comforts of our agricultural labourers. Agriculture 
fosters and embraces in its maternal grasp the knowledge of high 
and noble sciences as well as that of " common things ;" and it is 
not unreasonable to hope that that powerful Society, which pre- 
eminently represents the influence, the talent, the enterprise, and 
the humanity of our English agriculturists, will, among the 
tl)ousand-and-one otlier improvements which it has introduced and 
is introducing, not deem it beneath its notice to throw the energy 
of its influence against the unnatural system of Bearing-Reins. 
III. — On the Hereditary Diseases of Cattle. By Fin lay Dun, 
Jun., V.S., Lecturer on Materia Medica, cScc., at the Edinburgh 
Veterinary College. 
Prize Essay. 
Cattle are not exposed to so many exciting causes of disease 
as horses. They are seldom overworked, or exposed to sudden 
and violent changes of temperature, and are consequently less 
liable than the horse to affections of the chest and limbs. For 
the same reason, their lie;:editary diseases are also less nu- 
