An Essay on Fat and Muscle. 
261 
weight or size of the animal may be, these three properties are 
indispensable, if the breeder's object is to obtain the greatest 
weight of meat on the most valuable points. 
20. The immense difference in the size of the different breeds 
of cattle or horses is beyond our control, although man has pro- 
duced wonders even in this respect. Generally speaking they 
assume a certain character, dependent on the food which they 
obtain — for where food is abundant, they are found of a large 
size ; and, where deficient, they are found of a diminutive breed. 
But this truth holds good only as it regards the different races, 
and not the individuals — for were we to breed the Shetland pony 
on the best Lincoln pastures, it would take many hundred suc- 
cessive generations before his race would approximate to the size 
of the breeds that are natural to this district. 
21. But although the size of different breeds of animals is 
seemingly fixed, or dependent only on climate and soil, still much 
has been done by care and attention in breeding and rearing. 
Our attention here will chiefly be directed to the rearing depart- 
ment, where there is a great deal of mismanagement, even amongst 
our very best breeders. With some, it is a common practice in 
the rearing of a bull-calf, to place the young animal, shortly after 
he is weaned, in a narrow stall, and to feed him with raw milk 
and oatmeal gruel, and afterwards with some of the artificial and 
natural grasses, hay and turnips, <Scc. — the breeder feeling per- 
fectly satisfied that his system is a right one, so long as the animal 
is looking plump and fat. The effect of this, as we have already 
shown (16), would be without doubt to lessen the size of the lungs 
and other organs concerned in nutrition, and produce a breed that 
will carry immense masses of fat, come quickly to maturity, and 
also when they breed produce the same qualities in their offspring. 
But however desirable those qualities may be, depend on it there 
are others of an opposite character which are also to be attended 
to — these are, weight of muscle, strength of constitution, and the 
capability of propagating their race — to produce all which quite a 
different system must be adopted. There is a certain amount of 
exercise which muscles require to encourage their proper develop- 
ment and growth, that never can possibly be obtained by a young 
animal confined in this manner. The degree of activity in the nu- 
trition of muscles depends in a great measure upon the use that is 
made of them ; and thus we find that any set of muscles in con- 
tinual employment undergoes a great increase in size and vigour, 
whilst those that are disused lose their firmness and diminish in 
bulk (16.). Cattle require not such exercise as would tend to 
harden the muscular fibre, but just so much as would keep the 
animal in a healthy state, and prevent those enormous accumu- 
