The Management of a Sliortho7'n Herd. 
403 
The Shorthorns at The DufFrjn are made subservient to the 
general farm management, and treated as ordinary cattle — 
except the one or two specimens usually kept for exhibition. 
Mr. Richard Stratton is a tenant-farmer, with his rent to make 
by farming, pure and simple. He considers that with the best 
of blood and the best type of beef-making Shorthorn it is 
possible, under judicious treatment, to combine good milking 
properties, and that the less artificial the keep of breeding cattle 
the more satisfactory will be the result. In support of his 
theory about the combination of milk and beef, he can tri- 
umphantly point to numerous examples on his own farm, and 
Mr. Dampney, who has used the Messrs. Stratton's bulls for five- 
and-twenty years, and many others, have raised herds of great 
milkers. Mr. Stratton has at The Duffryn and other farms about 
1300 acres in hand, of which 700 are in grass (some roots 
grown for the milk cows), and he keeps 200 head of cattle and 
800 sheep (these not kept exclusively on the grass), Cotswolds, 
to be worked into Downs on the out-farms, and Shropshires at 
The DufFryn ; about 25 horses, including 15 colts and fillies, 
as he breeds each year 4 or 5 foals out of working mares. He 
works also by steam-power, with Fowler's 6-horse engines. 
The land at The Duffryn is a loam, partly on clay, partly on 
gravel. Ifton Hill, a distant farm, close by the Severn, and 
running down to it from a height of about 100 feet above the 
sea, is partly on the limestone and partly on the same formation 
as The Duffryn. There are salt marshes at both places. The 
Duffryn is flat, and, as its name signifies, low-lying land. 
Castleton, Mr. Stratton's third farm, on the Old Red Sandstone, 
lies high, and the young cattle and sheep are chiefly kept there. 
The salt mai'shes and " moors " run down to the Bristol Channel, 
forming part of Wentloog level. 
Mr. Stratton has a milk trade with Newport, The Duffryn 
farm supplying the milk, while, at one of the other farms, cream- 
cheeses and Devonshire cream are made, forming auxiliaries to 
the milk trade. A supply of milk is required for winter and 
summer, so the cows calve at all times of the year. 
All calves are suckled by their dams for some time ; the 
heifer calves usually about four months, more or less, the bulls 
longer (about six months), and if more milk is required to 
meet the trade, the plan is to take off a heifer-calf or two. In 
future, however, with the cream and cream-cheese trade develop- 
ing at the other farm, the practice there will be to wean at one 
week old on skim-milk, with linseed-meal or other substitute 
for the cream taken off. 
The cows are always (unlike the Scotch system) milked by 
men, who go round before the calves suck, and take a portion 
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