416 
The Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 
the summer following. Those born in the spring, summer, or 
early autumn have not age enough for going out the same year, 
but stay indoors (with their daily allowance of exercise as stated) 
over the first winter. All calves, male or female, are setoned 
in the dewlap in the spring. The heifers are allowed to breed 
as soon as they will after they are fifteen months old, bringing 
their first calves at a little over two years old. If delayed 
beyond this age, they are found to be not so ready to breed, and 
sometimes altogether fail, from their hereditary tendency to 
fatten. It is not so easy to keep them down in condition as to 
make them fat. 
The cattle are separated and assorted in ages, for the sake of 
appearance. In one field, or yard, or range of sheds, according 
to the time of the year, will be found the large heifer-calves ; in 
another the yearlings ; elsewhere the two-year-old heifers, and so 
forth, up to the ponderous old dams of the herd, often showing 
large, square, distended udders. For one week before calving the 
cows are kept indoors, their only food being long hay and bran. 
The housing is exceedingly good, and so arrange^ as to work 
in with the system of training animals to a hardy life, without 
that reckless and needless exposure, injurious to health and 
extravagantly wasteful of both the animal and its food, which 
some stock-owners call "making cattle hardy." The younger 
heifers have open-sided boxes, a yard with sheds, or boxes with 
a separate yard to each. Most of the cows are housed in boxes 
round the yards, and nearly all lie separately, so as not to knock 
each other about. The whole of the stock lie indoors at night 
in winter, the district being too wet for even the heifers to lie 
out. Usually from about the end of April to the end of October 
or beginning of November (depending upon the season) the 
cows lie out at night. During the summer months they get 
grass only ; in winter, long hay if hay happens to be plentiful ; 
if not, cut hay and straw mixed. They have no roots, but go 
out to grass every day in winter. If the ground is clear of snow 
they thus get a little picking of grass ; while the snow lies, they 
have no green food, yet the air and exercise keep them in health, 
and they can help themselves to water ad libitum. In noticing 
the treatment of Shorthorns in Aberdeenshire, I have referred to 
a prevailing impression that there is some connection between 
an abundant crop of turnips together with a short crop of straw, 
and calf-casting. Mr. Aylmer's opinion is confirmatory of the 
belief that too large a proportion of turnips has a tendency to 
cause abortion, and, as we have seen, his cows have no roots at 
all ; while, as a sheep-breeder, he most positively maintains that 
so great is the danger of giving turnips to ewes during preg- 
nancy, that he never allows his in-lamb ewes to have any. Per 
